Roasted Pumpkins

Our New Snack Favorite

Frozen oranges! We found these triangular wedges are the easiest and most fun way to eat these gems when frozen. We just cut them up, bag them, and toss them in the freezer. Easy to access and eat. So delicious and healthy! Our awesome, adopted Grandma Cheryl (our dear neighbor) first clued us in on this nifty frozen delight.

Grape Juice

 

We were blessed enough to be invited to pick grapes at a friend of a friend's backyard vineyard mid-August. He had a wonderful slew of vines, and we came home with a couple bushels of Concord and what I think were Reliance grapes. I can't wait for the day we have a lovely backyard vineyard. We picked wild grapes earlier a couple weeks before, but their yield is just not much compared to these juicy beauties.

 

These are the grapes draining. After I was all finished making juice, and had already tossed the spent skins, pulp, and seeds, my preservation group had a posting that said I could have used all of that to make fruit leather by putting it through my handy-dandy food mill. Something to try next year!

 

We ended up with 8 gallons of grape juice. Grape juice and apple juice are the only things that are safe to can in half gallon jars, and boy does that fact make processing go so much faster. I canned grape juice a couple years ago, but did it all in quarts that time and it makes for a lot of time spent canning. The Concords made a beautiful purple juice, while the Reliance, which were green to pink, made a lovely mauve-y pink juice. All those quarts up there are chicken stock and crushed tomatoes. It was a busy week :)

Noodles

I love how orange/deep yellow these are when made with eggs, just hours after our hens laid them.

Delicious Problem

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day Dough + hot oil + (cocoa powder + powdered sugar + milk) = DONUTS!

Saving on Our Food Bill

Eek! It's been awhile since I have posted, after being so consistent. My new laptop decided, only a month after buying it, that the motherboard was no good, so she's been in the shop having a new one installed. All better now (I hope!), so back to work :)

Over the last several months I have been honing in on our grocery budget, trying to be as efficient and frugal with it as I can, while maintaining my sanity and our health. We've done pretty well. For example, there is nothing we *need* to purchase this week. Canned tomatoes are on sale at our Fareway at a good stock up price, so I may stop by on Saturday, since I noticed just a couple weeks ago we were nearing our last cans of tomatoes with chiles, but otherwise, we are good. That is such a freeing feeling.

So, we have had to back away some local buying for the winter, as we are also working on paying off all, yes, all, of our debt. I have wanted to do this for sometime, and finally Dad is completely on board. While we are working on that, prices dictate what we buy, and as much as I love to buy local, if it isn't the best price going for now (which, during the farmer's market season, it most certainly can be), we have to eschew it. We still have our bulk meat purchases, but most everything else, minus about one dozen eggs a week from our girls, is coming from local stores.

Even buying from the store can cost you a lot. We, through various local bloggers, found that ad shopping specifically helped out tremendously, as well as being willing to set space aside for stockpiling. We already used a large deep freeze to store meat, but found with the ad shopping it became even more useful. I also had already started to stockpile a little as I wanted to be prepared for the unknown-more economic difficulty, family illness, job loss or zombies-so I just have had to expand this, which I also wanted to do anyway. By those small changes, and the occasional use of coupons, we have whittled our weekly costs down to around $70. That is an average; if there is a lot on sale we may write a check for $150, but then not need to go to the store the next week, or only need milk.

How this works-first of all I have implemented the use of a household notebook. This is a binder where I have a variety of different lists and calendars to track what food we currently have or should have in our pantry and freezer, what has been on sale week to week (so I can track cycles and plan purchases accordingly), envelopes with clipped coupons, bills, and our general schedule. I also have a little notebook I use to track what the lowest price I've found on something is, though I have been slacking on updating it lately. That little book is really important, though. Looking at it often, I now have a good idea of what the best prices for things are, and can walk through the store and spot when something is a good deal. Having the book on hand is always handy, though, too.

Last summer I went shopping at most places in the metro area to compare prices on the things we were purchasing regularly. This included Hy Vee, Fareway, Aldi, Sam's Club and Costco. I have memberships to the latter two set to expire in May. After going back and forth on whether to renew them, just a couple weeks ago I decided not to. Here's why-they cost more than they save, at least for us. I figured costs, adjusting for the cost of membership, and the few, and there are only a few if you know how to shop ads, items that are cheaper do not make up for the cost of membership, time or gas, for us to use these places. If you watch ads, and don't even worry about coupons, you can easily save far more money just stocking up when things are on sale. I also found that prices between Aldi and the warehouses (and often Wal Mart, too, but I thoroughly dislike shopping at Wal Mart; it is too big and too busy and too easy to impulse buy) were often comparable, after figuring the membership fees. So, you can forgo the fees and pay the same price, but for smaller sizes. (Note-I compared price per unit or ounce, so that everything was comparable, no matter what size was being sold. A tricky way to get people to pay more for something is to sell it in the jumbo pack and make it seem like you're getting more for less, when you aren't, actually.)

Now, size is another thing that I found to be important. I don't know about other families, but we use things in smaller, more manageable sizes, far more efficiently. The larger sizes equal a lot more waste, though not intentionally. It just was often the case that things would spoil or deteriorate in quality before we were able to get through them. This was also a major reason we decided that the big stores weren't as big on savings as we thought. A gigantic bag of tortilla chips might be a few cents cheaper (they actually came to 1 cent per ounce cheaper at Costco than Aldi's normal price, and several cents more expensive than watching ads for 99 cent bags, which happened just a couple weeks ago, and stocking up), but because of the nature of tortilla chips, even closing them tightly whenever we were finished with the bag, they still were stale before we got through them. Now, I can use stale chips on casseroles and such, but we don't buy them for that purpose, and we would have to open a new bag to eat with salsa so it wasn't saving us anything. Some things could be frozen, but that meant a lot of work to repackage them into smaller portions for easier use later, and though I absolutely didn't mind, the time and mess involved made it not worth my time. Homeschooling and a newborn has me busy enough.
Not renewing that membership means that come May, no more big box stores for us. That leaves Wal Mart (which I prefer to not go to, but they do have a great price match policy. Many of the other grocery stores in town will match nearby competitors, though, and I generally shop in Altoona where this is the case.), Dahls (too expensive, in general), Hy Vee, Fareway and Aldi. Most weeks we are heading to Fareway or HyVee, depending on who has the better ad. This varies a lot, as often what we are stocking up on is a store brand, so it is more difficult to match prices (though Fareway often does a great job of doing this anyway, and without even having to bring an ad along. They just mark their stuff down to compete.). Often produce will be the breaking point, determining where we head. It is incredible how much more we spend on food because we don't take the time to think about what we're purchasing or planning ahead. I was really, really guilty of it.
Now, I should mention that we make most of our meals at home. Dad, since starting to pay off debt, has even started to take his lunch to work most days. We have a few items that are processed we get, like canned chili, box mac n cheese and cake mixes. All of those are for those times when we are completely frazzled, or we're going camping, or for emergencies when fresh alternatives aren't an option. I don't know what a difference in a grocery bill buying a lot of processed goods would make. We also use cloth napkins and towels, and make most of our own households cleaners. Those we don't make we are pretty picky about, so we splurge a little. Paper products and cleaners can get really expensive.

Something else to keep in mind is the necessity to keep track of the food you have or knowing creative ways to store things on sale. For examples, those canned veggies will eventually not be too terribly palatable. Rather than squinting at a date each time we go down we do two things: rotate stock or face it, as it was called back when I was a grocery store employee, and we also took a tip from a couponing lady, and write in a big black marker on the front of the can what the date it expires is. Easy to read and understand and those rules work for everything. We also keep like items together-canned goods, baking goods, boxed, bagged. We can easily send the kids down to grab something we may need in a pinch.

Creativity is often needed to use or store those store bought items. I posted previously on our solution for mushrooms-making a base for cream of mushroom soup, or even just sauteing them in butter and freezing, or they dry beautifully. The same goes for other produce-often they'll freeze as is, or can easily be made into something else that will store better. 

As far as easy to grab meals, we have a few solutions there, too. I splurged on a giant box of restaurant grade food containers, pint size (though I think I'll end up going back for quarts, too), to store single serving size portions of meals in. I generally make more than we need for meals. Not always intentionally, but we never know how hungry we're going to be. Some nights we'll eat an entire pot of beef and noodles, others we'll have a bowl and be satisfied. I am not going to waste that food I worked so hard to get at a good price and prepare, but Dad doesn't eat leftovers (at least not knowingly in their original form, mwah ha ha ha ha ha) and often there will be more than even the kids and I can reasonably eat, so our new MO is to freeze them in those brilliant containers. I know we try to avoid plastics, but there are some places where they are just so handy, and the freezer is one. By freezing in single serving portions, they are perfect for sending in lunches, or if the kids just want sandwiches for lunch but I want something hot, I can pull one out. Another thing they have proved handy in is helping others. Dad's grandpa loves a hot meal, but his grandma is not as nimble as she once was, and it is hard for either to be in the kitchen much. Those single servings are perfect to send an assortment of meals his way (she tends to eat sparingly, and mostly raw fruits and veggies). He can keep them in the freezer for when he needs them, and has instant home-cooked meals handy rather than processed food that often contains far too much salt and sugar for what his varied health concerns necessitate. Big leftovers, like another meal's worth, we freeze in aluminum casserole pans or gallon sized ziplocks for our use later. I hardly call them leftovers, though, as often it is intentional that I make enough to freeze an entire meal for later use.

Another thing we do is include the kids in our food situation. They know that we buy on sale items or items on the list, help us find things on the shelf, count items as we put them in the cart, help carry them to the house and put them away. This helps them understand why we buy what we do and where we store things. This is all training for when they are older, something I didn't have but would sure have enjoyed once I was on my own. Too many families buy on a whim. It is amazing what plans can do! As they get older they will be invited to be more involved in the planning process, too. For now, just talking the entire time we're shopping and putting things away helps them to understand. They also have a great grip on why we buy certain foods and not others. Come this spring they'll help with our garden again, too, and the preservation process. Food is so vital to life and health and yet we treat it so nonchalant. If we put as much time in training our kids about food in our lives (as well as money and God) as we do using technology, it would be amazing what a difference in health and happiness we would see in our country.

It may seem like a lot of work, but once you get a good plan or set up, it really flows nicely and is so worth it. I would rather take the nearly $80 (!) we save each week and take the kids out for an occasional dinner out or buy a movie (or for now, pay a little extra on a bill) than spend it on food. Oh, and I should also mention that we also try to meal plan, too. I don't stick hard and fast to it, but having a basic plan, knowing what we need week to week, helps a lot. It also takes stress off of the "what should we eat" problem that arises around 5 o'clock each day.

Try doing just one thing different the next month and see what happens. We have implemented all these strategies a little at a time-change isn't easy. But, by doing so we have seen major difference and great improvement, in a lot of different areas.

Middle Eastern food night

This was dessert last week, baklava made using Pioneer Woman's recipe. It was delicious, and we had plenty so I was able to freeze some for last minute dessert later. Like usual, though, I can't leave the recipe as is, so I used a combination of walnuts, pecans and sesame seeds and added 1 t of almond extract instead of the 2 t of vanilla. So, so delicious but terribly rich.

This is the za'atar pizza or flatbread. It was pretty much the best loved part of the meal, and will become a staple in our house as it is also super easy. We used a za'atar blend from a local Middle Eastern grocery, and mixed it with olive oil, sesame seeds and salt. Smear all that on flattened pieces of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day basic boule and bake at 450 for about 10 minutes. Fast and super delicious!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Makin'

We made some cookies last week while the Reids were over. Originally, we were going to make a recipe I had found for cheetah cookies to go along with our unit we were working on, but decided they didn't sound nearly as yummy as good old peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. We used this recipe, that I was completely happy with, from the Tasty Kitchen site.

This Week's Shopping List Sept 13, 2011

This is what is on our list this week. Fareway promises new sales on Friday and Saturday that are not listed in the ad already out. We plan on heading to Hy-Vee for their one day sale Friday early, so we'll hit up Fareway then, too, to see what they added.

Hy-Vee
64 oz Hy Vee brand OJ 99 cents (Fri only). They had this on sale a couple weeks ago, too. They are limiting 2 per customer this week, but we've only gone through 2, so this works out well.
Dole coleslaw mix 69 cents a bag, limit 2, Fri only. We don't actually eat that much coleslaw, so this may seem silly but these work great for egg rolls, so I will also purchase some wrappers and either make enough for freezer meal later this month, or just enough for the freezer one the baby comes.
Hy Vee mac and cheese 59 cents a box, Fri only, no limit. I never, never buy boxed mac and cheese, but we are back to trying to build up our emergency food storage and let's face it, there is little that is more shelf-stable and kid friendly in a crisis than mac and cheese.
Hy-Vee thin sliced deli ham $1.99# Fri only, no limit. Lunch meat freezes beautifully and this price is crazy awesome.
Hy-Vee yogurt 29 cents a cup through the 20th. Protein being so important right now, yogurt is high on our buying list here lately. Yogurt also freezes beautifully. I LOVE my freezer :)
Though we do not need any, if you need chicken both breast and hind quarters are super prices right now, so I would stock up on them if we weren't already full of chicken.
Hy Vee tomato sauce 3 for a $1 until the 20th, no limit.
Hunt's pasta sauce 88cents a can, until the 20th, no limit.
Midwest Country Fare frozen veggies 88 cents a bag, until the 20th, no limit.
Whole Boneless Pork Loins, $1.99# limit 2, Fri only. Perfect for big meals with family.

Fareway:
Apples $2.99 per 3# bag
Hunt's ketchup (Hunt's is HFCS free) 99 cents per 24 oz bottle
Carrots $1.29/2#
Tostitos tortilla chips $1.99/13 oz bag

Plus we'll pick up milk and bread for the week, although I am hopeful we may have found a decent brand of sprouted bread at Campbell's ( as in, not dry and icky tasting), so we may be shifting to purchasing that on art class days while we're in town.

Cupcakes

 

 

 

 

Spaghetti Casserole

Freezing pasta and making it come back to life is not the easiest thing to pull off. We've had some attempts with the Make Ahead Mamas group I host, and it has been hit or miss. With the addition of a lot of flavor and binder to the pasta in this recipe, though, it works very nicely. I made my casserole with rice linguine, everyone else's with whole wheat spaghetti noodles. I thought it was delicious; unfortunately the husband doesn't like pasta, so we end up cutting it into smaller sizes and freezing it for use at lunch. I started with a recipe from southernfood.about.com and tailored it to my preferences.

Spaghetti Casserole
 (also called spaghetti pie, but this, by no stretch of the imagination, forms a real "crust")

Mix together in a large bowl and then line a casserole dish like a crust with:
1 package spaghetti noodles (12-16 oz), cooked according to package and drained
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c grated Parmesan cheese

Meanwhile, brown:
1 pound ground beef, or half ground beef-half Italian sausage. For the recent Make Ahead Mamas meeting I actually slow cooked beef short ribs in a tomato broth then pulled the meat and excess fat off the bones, shredded it and added the sauce and veggies to it and let it slow cook in the roaster oven overnight. For everyday use, I use ground beef. You ladies just got lucky ;)

Add to your ground beef and saute until softened:
1 small onion, chopped
4 ounces mushrooms, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 carrot, shredded
1/2 c greens (I used frozen collards), chopped

Add:
1 quart, more or less-use your better judgment-spaghetti sauce to the meat filling, then top your noodles with that.

Top the casserole with more:
Parmesan cheese and shredded cheese to cover. I like using blends, or you can use just Mozzarella. Havarti melts very nicely with a mild flavor, Cheddar has a wonderful flavor. I think I used a blend of all four cheeses mentioned the last time we had it.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until the top is nice and browned and bubbly. I baked for the freezer just until the top was thoroughly melted but not browned, then let it cool and covered the pan with foil and put in the freezer. To reheat, let thaw in the fridge then bake at 350 until it browns and is bubbly with melted cheese again.

Sweet Gift

Grandma Gail brought out cupcakes for the kids for Valentine's Day. They loved them :)

Mercer Mayer at Stephens Auditorium and lunch at my fave place

"The Alligator Under My Bed"

"The Nightmare in My Closet"

"The Monster in the Attic"

Wiki sticks and cream soda for my little man at lunch

 

 

 

 

One of my favorite features of the Cafe is that their kids food is *real* food, and delicious enough for adults to want to eat it.

 

 

 

 

Flourless Chocolate Cake. Y. U. M. Rich, so we took half home, which I enjoyed all by myself the next day.

 

W's big bite. It f-i-l-l-e-d his cheeks. A typical boy move.

 

 

 

 Though I wasn't entirely impressed with the productions of the Mercer Mayer books, this time of year we all enjoy chances to get out and do something with some of our favorite people. And any time someone offers Mama a chance to eat at the Cafe, you see her sitting shotgun waiting for you to jump in the car, too.

Tortilla Chicken Soup

 

This soup is so very simple, and terribly tasty. Perfect for busy weeknight dinners. It also cans well, just follow the same directions as you would for regular chicken soup.

In a large stock pot combine:

2 qts chicken stock or broth

1 # chicken, I like to use thighs and legs

1/4 c salsa

Boil this until the chicken is cooked and you are able to remove it easily from the bone. Remove all the chicken from the pot and bone/skin it. You can use the bones and skin to make stock later. Chop the chicken up and put it back into the pot, along with:

1 c corn kernels

1 pt diced tomatoes

salt and pepper to taste

Bring back up to a boil and cook only long enough for everything to be heated through. Remove from heat and serve with any selection of garnishes (which add a lot of flavor! I use a little of them all :) )-

1 ripe avocado, pitted, peeled and chopped

1 T lemon or even better, lime juice (or tiny wedges you can squeeze in as you want)

1 bag corn tortilla chips

2 c grated cheese-here a blend of Monterrey Jack and Cheddar is very good

1/2 bunch of fresh cilantro OR 1/8 c dried

Chicken Fried Steak and Gravy

I'm going to be honest, I didn't think I'd be able to ever eat this favorite meal from my childhood again once I got the news that gluten and I didn't get along. Since marrying, I had converted my husband as well (especially since it meant mashed potatoes :)  ), and I thought I had better find *some* way to get this back into rotation. By some stroke of grace, I got it right on the first try. I admit it helps that I know my way around the kitchen pretty well and am very familiar with this particular recipe, but I still had my doubts. So much of what wheat based flours do well is due to their gluten content. I had too many fond memories of going to breakfast with my dad before class started when I was college and us both eating our chicken fried steak with gravy, eggs, hashbrowns and the only real way to eat breakfast, hot sauce. With him no longer around those memories are even more precious, and every time I take a bite of this, as simple as it seems, I am reminded of him and how much I miss him.
My way to make this is pretty simple. I wish I had taken step by step pictures for you-I may still the next time I make it-as I think when it comes to anything that has a roux involved, you are better off seeing. For now, here's what I did to make it safe for me to eat:
Start with your steak. I used good ol' Ebersole Cattle Compant beef minute steaks. Pounded them just a little. You don't want to do too much here as they are already tenderized. I just like them nice and thin. (At this point I already had potatoes boiling for the mash. Just drain, mash, add lots of butter, salt, pepper and sour cream and voila, you've got our mashed potatoes.)
Next you need your dredging station. I first season the steaks with just a little all purpose seasoning, or if shooting from the hip, salt, pepper, paprika and garlic. I first want to dip the steak in a seasoned flour blend-a good all purpose flour (gluten ap's work, too). The GF blend I am using now I really like. When I made this, though, I hadn't stumbled upon it and instead used a 3 part blend-1 part corn masa flour, 1 part rice flour and 1 part starchy flour like tapioca or potato. Blend them well and add some seasoning-salt, pepper, paprika, garlic, maybe a little sugar and definitely a little cayenne.
After that initial flour dredge, you'll need some wet. I went with an egg blended with a few tablespoons of milk. If you like your stuff spicy, you can sneak some hot pepper sauce in here. I didn't, as the kids had to eat this, too, but had it just been Dad and I, hot sauce gets inserted wherever I can find to sneak it in. Mind you, I DO NOT use hot sauce just for the heat. The heat is nice, but it is really the flavor that I like, which is why I have preferences on what I use. I like the smokey ones that do not taste as much of vinegar. I think heating something up to just heat it up is silly. There should be taste points being won there, not being burned off your tongue, you know?
So, once through the flour blend, once through the egg blend, THEN back through the flour blend. Now you're ready for the frying part. I fry in a large cast iron skillet or dutch oven. Here we are pan frying, just like they do in the South, so frying pan it is. You want around 1/2 inch or so of oil in the pan-I love to use coconut oil for this, but use whatever you do for your other higher temp frying. Bring the oil up to heat-it should be shimmering or water should dance on top of the oil if you drop in just a few drops, then add your steaks, being careful not to crowd. For me, this means only 1-2 at a time. Fry one side until crispy and golden brown, and then the other, being careful not to burn. That means you need to be right there with it. If it seems like they are burning fast, your oil is too hot, and you may need to take down the temp or just take the pan off the fire for a bit to let it cool. It happens-don't worry. Better to take your time than to burn through them.
As you take them out of the skillet place them on a towel lined baking sheet or a cooling rack over a baking sheet and put them in a warm oven to keep them crisp until it is time to eat. With the GF flours you must be gentle with them-this flour does not form bonds with your meat the way a glutinous flour will.
Fry all your steak, then move on to the gravy. Drain all but a couple tablespoons of the frying oil out of the pan, being careful to try to reserve as many of the drippings-the little bits of the steak and coating-in the pan. Turn your heat back down to low, as your pan should be plenty hot at this point, and add flour-GF all purpose blend worked well here, too. I use the leftover dredging flour for this. I hate to waste anything, and it is already seasoned. Don't just dump a bunch in, but start by adding 1/4 c then 1 tablespoon at a time until the flour soaks up all the oil. Here you want to cook the flour a little. Too many people rush in and get a flour-y tasting gravy. Yuck. Stir it around in the pan a bit until you can smell it starting to cook and it starts to turn brown. This is where the magic happens. Starting adding milk in a slow, steady stream, and whisking it in with the flour in the pan. What should be happening is a roux is being formed-the flour, nice and hot, starts to blend with the milk and thicken. As the milk heats up, the flour mix will continue to thicken the gravy. You just keep adding milk to keep it at what consistency you want. Once you reach that consistency, taste and add seasoning. For this gravy I use salt, black pepper and cayenne, with a real emphasis on the black pepper. Black pepper gravy is a mainstay with chicken fried anything. Once you've got that gravy tasting great, you race with your potatoes, steaks and gravy to the table and devour while everything is nice, fresh and hot. We serve green beans with ours, and they mix in so well with the gravy that covers everything else on the plate.
And all without any gluten-based flours. YUM-O!

Meal Planning and Monthly Shopping (long post alert)

This new approach has been working out wonderfully-which is great. I have tried for YEARS to get a meal plan that fit our family. The weekly thing wasn't working-for one the more time we spend in the store, the more we buy, which is not out of the ordinary, it seems. I also tended to stray from the weekly meal plan, a lot. I tried doing a different theme each night to make it easier to fill in the blanks, or thought it would be easier to try new things since we had planned them. Yeah, not so much. I also hate having to shop several different places to get a bargain, or to just get all we need. I am not a very good coupon clipper. I clip some every once in a while, or use them for going to eat pretty well, but for groceries it didn't work. One big reason for that is that I am not a brand slave. A few items we end up buying brand name, like the occasional Reece's Peanut Butter Cup, as Dad insists all others will not suffice, but for the most part I want cheap, but quality. I am in the middle of doing a bunch of cost comparison between the places we have frequented in the past. So far, with the cost of membership added in for Costco, Aldi is winning the race. I have to look at my data for Fareway and will need to stop by Sam's Club, but my educated guess is that Aldi will end up winning. With having to basically re-distribute my purchases from bulk clubs to make them flow with our routine, time is an issue as well. One plus of not shopping there is that my items come in all ready-to-use sizes. I like being able to buy a lot of some items. I think I have gotten past needing to do this at bulk stores, and rather, am starting to build our pantry and emergency food storage through just buying a little extra each month, and watching sales.
Though I fail at couponing, I do do pretty well at watching the circular ads I get in the mail to see when super deals pop up. Recently that meant running to HyVee outside our normal in-town days in order to take advantage of a deep sale on chicken and pasta sauce (I only had stewing chicken left in my freezer from our own birds), both things that will store well in the freezer and pantry. I bought as much as the ad would let me, and won't have to buy either for months now, helping out the monthly grocery budget. It also helps me build our emergency pantry, and all it takes is reading the ads, which come in our mail once a week, for free. I keep track of what the average cost of what we usually buy is on top of that, so I know when something is on-sale for just a little less than we usually pay, and when something is on sale enough to warrant a special trip and special deviation from our usual grocery budget.
Our newest venture in the shopping arena is to only shop once a month. This takes planning on my part-I need to know what we eat for snacks, meals and little extras, and estimate how much we will need in a month by looking at previous months. Whoever said running a household was easy stuff didn't take their job seriously :) From that I generate our grocery list, divided into sections for pantry, refrigerated, meat, frozen and fruits and veg. This list should not change month to month, with the exception of months when fruits, veg and our dairy animals, are in season. In those months I make a point to preserve what we aren't eating fast enough for use through the winter, and so far each year we have canned just little more than the last, and we feel the help it gives in the grocery budget. For pantry items, even if we do not need the amount put on the list, I buy it anyway. My grocery bill remains the same each month (for the most part), so I can budget that out, and I build our pantry storage by just buying our usual items. We just don't always go through everything. There may be a birthday or anniversary dinner out that saves that dinner's items. We may have a spontaneous breakfast out on a weekend just for fun. We may entertain guests and use a little more. I think many people are concerned with not spending too much each month on food, but not enough are concerned with not spending enough. That little extra is better spent on a little storage and meal insurance than it is on something else. Don't get me wrong, we are working on wittling down debt, but that happens by cutting other areas, and by shopping smart in the first place, not cutting our food back to nearly nothing. During the summer when fresh produce will be coming straight out of the garden, I will still spend the same amount on groceries-just on items we can stock up on like grains and sweeteners. I think the biggest thing is looking at the big picture and having a plan-then sticking to it. It is different for everyone, this is just what is working for us.
So, all of that leads to our meal plan and grocery shopping list. This is what we have so far, though we are still tweaking everything. We find a meal that just isn't flying with everyone or a new favorite that needs worked. During the summer fresh produce will be added and some meals adapted for outdoor cooking.

One Month Meal Plan~
I keep all of this in a binder divided into each week, with the recipes for that week put in behind for easy access. Recipes that are used more than once are placed at the front of the binder in a "basic" area for easy reference. I also keep my recipe for our gluten-free flour blend and a few easy desserts for family nights or when we're entertaining here, too. I have a whole other binder for other recipes that we aren't using all the time, but are ones we want to save for special occasions. Also housed in that are recipes we want to try. I flip through them from time to time and pull a new one out. Otherwise, I've found our plan works best when we stick to tried and true family faves that I am comfortable cooking-especially after a busy day of errands.

Basic Recipe Section:
Banana Bread
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies
All-Purpose Gluten Flour Blend
Gluten Free Thin Crust Pizza Dough
Pancakes
Waffles
Potato Farls
Gluten Free Artisan Bread in 5 Brioche
Apple Crisp

Week One:
Sunday-Breakfast is potato farls and eggs;  
Lunch out, most likely visiting great grandparents;  
Dinner is Wisconsin Swiss Potato Soup
Monday-Breakfast during the week rotates according to the kid's desires from scrambled eggs, cereal and toast with nutella and fruit;  
Lunch is homemade lunchables (all reference to lunchables throughout is homemade-crackers, cheddar or colby cheese, sliced, and lunchmeat-ham or turkey, plus fruit and veggies) and fruit, eaten in the truck since we run errands this day and  
Dinner on Mondays is our chance to try new things, though I have standbys planned many nights in case we just don't feel like it. Right now this Monday is open.
Tuesday-Lunch is tuna melts;
Dinner is Broiled Chicken Thighs with Peach Salsa with a tossed salad, cottage cheese and some pickled veggie
Wednesday-Lunch is Ham and Cheese sandwiches and
we share dinner with our fr-amily the Reids, otherwise if we have to cancel for some reason, I pull out a freezer meal
Thursday-Lunch is lunchables in the truck again for art class and errands, and
dinner is Tacos. Thursday is Beef/Goat/Lamb night.
Friday-Lunch is leftovers/pasta.
Dinner is pizza with tossed salad. Every Friday night is pizza night at our house.
Saturday-Since Dad is home we have big breakfasts on the weekend. Waffles and turkey/beef bacon. Lunch is Dad's signature sandwich, potato panini with chips, veggies and dip, and
Dinner is Meatloaf, cooked in the crockpot.

Week 2
Sun: B-Bacon and Cheese Casserole
L-Out or with Grandparents
D-Great Lakes Salmon Chowder (this is a new recipe we haven't tried yet. It may get changed)
Mon: L-Lunchables, out running errands
D-something new
Tues: L-leftovers
D-Chicken Tortilla Soup
Wed: L-Leftover or Mac and Cheese
D-With the Reids or Freezer Meal
Thurs: L-Lunchables, art class
D-Steak night with tossed salad and cottage cheese
Friday: L-Ham and Cheese Sandwiches
D-Pizza and salad
Sat: B-Pancakes and bacon
L-Potato Farls
D-Taco Salads (meat cooked in crockpot all day)

Week 3
Sun: B-Eggs, Bacon and hashbrowns
L-Out or with Grandparents
D-Beef Stew
Mon: L-Lunchables
D-Salmon Patties or something new
Tues- L-Ham and Cheese
D- Tortilla Pie with Chicken
Wed-L-Leftovers
D-Reids/Freezer Meal
Thurs-L-Lunchables
D-Beef Stroganoff Stuffed Potatoes
Fri-L-Pasta/leftovers
D-Pizza and salad
Sat-B-Waffles and Bacon
L-Potato Panini/Sausage Kale and Potatoes
D-Chili Dogs with salad and chips

Week 4-
Sun-B-Egg Casserole
L-out or with Grandparents
D-Hot and Sour Soup; this week we'll be with the Reids for the Superbowl, though
Mon-L-Lunchables
D-Spaghetti Pie
Tues-L-Ham and Cheese
D-Chicken and Ginger Stirfry over rice
Wed-L-Leftovers/Pasta
D-Reids/Freezer Meal
Thurs-L-Lunchables
D-Beef Enchiladas
Fri-L-Leftovers/Pasta
D-Pizza and salad
Sat-B-Pancakes and Bacon
L-Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwiches
D-Goat Posole

Then we start over after four weeks with another trip to the grocery store and new rotation of the weeks. I keep things like grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas and hamburgers on hand for those nights when we just run out of time, or are really tired or just don't want to eat what is planned, which doesn't happen often.
So, that leaves the shopping list. I came away spending $160, plus I had to pick up chocolate milk mix (ovaltine or Nestle) elsewhere. I also am a member of our local food buying group, and try to purchase local goods through them when we can. In the deep of winter in Iowa, choices are limited. I have memberships to a few natural goods mail-order groups, too, where I get random items that are hard to find or hard to get at good prices here, like the specialty flours I use for my gluten issues and spices/herbs and beauty supplies. I don't order there more than once every month or two, so it doesn't add too much to my bill. I will work on the master list post later, as this post is pretty long. I have list that lists what we need to have on hand all the time, then there is the list that is store specific. I also try to stop by Fareway once every week or two and check out the scratch and dent shelf, as well as produce clearance. I make some great finds there.

Homemaking is an ART. Don't let anyone else tell you differently. Each area of the home has specific needs and to do it well it takes time, practice and patience. Each family will find what works best for them, or suffer through chaos. My mind functions best when things are methodical, and so planning and having lists to work from makes me comfortable, just like clearing clutter and having a routine does.

Moroccan Chicken Stew

 Moroccan Chicken Stew
(adapted from a recipe found in Better Homes and Gardens Magazine)

1 t salt
1 t ground cloves
1 t ground turmeric
1 t ground ginger
1/2 t crushed red pepper
1/2 t ground black pepper
2 1/2  # chicken thighs and drumsticks, skin removed or a whole, smaller chicken will work, too

Rub half of those first spice ingredients on to your chicken.

1 med onion, cut into wedges
6 large cloves garlic, minced
1 lg butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut into chunks
1 qt chicken stock

Place your veggies into the crockpot, along with the other half of the spices. Then add the stock and put the chicken on top of everything. Cook on high until the veggies are nice and soft and the chicken is falling off the bone. Remove the chicken carefully, and take it off the bone, adding the meat back to the pot. The bones can now be used (and the skin you removed earlier, if you kept it) to make chicken stock, and the discarded.

1 c pitted kalamata olives
1/2 c dried apricots, coarsely chopped
hot, cooked rice or couscous

Serve over hot rice or couscous, and top with apricots and olives. Delicious :)

Sweet Chili Salad Dressing

I realized I had never posted here one of my personal favorites for homemade dressing. I made this up while experimenting with making a creamy parm like a local Italian place. I never achieved their dressing, but rather ended up with something completely different, and completely awesome. I do end up buying the mayo and the sweet chili sauce, but you can easily, easily make both those things. Google for recipes and you'll come up with plenty to choose from. I just feel that I can't spend all my time in the kitchen, no matter how fun that would be :) Enjoy!

Sweet Chili Salad Dressing

1/3 c sweet chili sauce (look for it in the Asian food section)
3/4 c mayo
milk to thin
1/2 t fresh ground black pepper
1/4 c grated parmesan
1 t onion powder or grated onion (yes grate the onion, and make sure to do it over the bowl so you catch the juices)
1 t granulated garlic or 2 cloves grated garlic (same as the onion folks)

Whisk this all together until it is well blended, and use the milk to thin to your desired consistency.

This stuff only gets better with time, developing a great bite by the next morning. Make sure to refrigerate!
Posted over at Homestead Revival's Homemade Dressing Exchange: