I am trying to keep up with my menu plans because::

1. It gives me future ideas

2. We all know it saves money

3. You can think through how to buy a special ingredient and use it up before it’s spoils and has to be thrown out. For instance Basil or last week I had Kale with a couple of uses.

Sunday
Breakfast Burritos – never got to these last week
eggs, sausage, hash browns wrapped in flour tortillas

Monday
Lemon Chicken
over pasta or spaghetti squash
roasted veggies or salad

Tuesday
Pork Bulgogi with Rice

Wednesday – I don’t want to cook day
Sausage – like Trader Joe’s Mango Chicken
Saute onions and red pepper -toss in sliced sausage
add can of black beans and corn – saute till warm
Serve over rice

Thursday – Girls night, boys are snowboarding
Roasted Veggies over Quinoa
needs a sauce and I’m taking suggestions

Friday
Pasta Carbonara
Bread
Caesar Salad

Saturday
I’m going to the Roller Derby, so dinner out!!
That’s right the Roller Derby!!!!!

Find out what others are eating this week.

I had a friend ask on Facebook what people were serving for dinner on a regular basis. It’s a good question. You get stuck in a rut and you want to find out what others are doing, because their rut is different than your rut. And before you know it you have 5 new meals.

Here is how I have avoided the rut, well for the most part.

I started menu planning about 1 1/2 years ago. I have my little notebook and I write my meals down in it. I also have a page of meals that were hits. I am always trying new things, and with Pinterest I have recipes for days, and many I have tried and like.

So now what I do is when I go to work on my meal plan for the week, I look over all my meals from the past year or so. It jolts my memory of something I made and everyone liked. Therefore making my list of “hits” even longer.

You will have more than one list if you are like me. The things you serve in the winter are different than the things you serve in the summer. I don’t use my oven in the summer and I don’t have grill to use in the winter. Since I try to cook with seasonal food I like to keep those lists separate.

Over a  year ago I sat the family down and asked them of the things we eat, what would you put on the weekly menu?  From that I not only got my question answered, but it has continued to work for me. I will try a new recipe and they will say “Don’t add this to the weekly list” or “You could add this every other week” and then some times I hit the home run and get the “add this to the weekly list.”

The nice thing is I no longer ask the question if they like it, they just offer up their opinion. It’s a great way to keep building on the weekly meal plans.

Here’s what I’m eating this week.

Monday :: Zuppa Toscana soup with bread and maybe a Caesar salad

Tuesday :: Butternut Squash Gnocchi with salad

Wednesday :: Beef in a Red Wine Sauce,  over mashed potatoes served with roasted carrots

Thursday :: Family all gone, me home alone. Either left overs or out with a friend.

Friday :: I’m out with the girls meaning my family will eat out.

Saturday ::  Breakfast burritos – hashbrowns, eggs, bacon/sausage, little bit of cheese rolled in a flour tortilla.

My Monday soup has kale in it. I will be making some green smoothies this week to use that up. Green smoothies is just a blend of fruits with kale.

My Tuesday meal has sage in it. I will use the extra sage in my lunches when I heat up my Butternut Squash Bisque.

Wednesday will always have left overs. If I wasn’t making the butternut squash gnocchi the day before I would make extra mashed potatoes to go with the Beef in a red wine sauce so I could make gnocchi with the left overs, but Gnocchi once a week is enough.

Just maybe if I plan it right I could have some left overs for the everyone on the Friday I am gone.

My lunches will consist of lunch meat, soup and green smoothies. My son will get a sandwich and fruits and veggies and my daughter will have whatever she makes for herself since she is home for lunch every day. My husband will either have a sandwich here or out to eat.

Here is what others are eating this week.

It’s been a while since I have put up a menu plan, but the truth is I do them all the time. Even if you have no desire to coupon to save money, you can still save a ton of money by meal planning.

I have ruined my family. I love to cook and the family, in their craziness, never help, so if I am planning on being down at all I have to plan ahead for my own meals, and theirs too of course.

I bring you my menu plan courtesy of Pinterest. I have saved all my food ideas there and love just looking at the pictures as a reminder.

Monday, November 14

• Crockpot Roast
• Roasted Veggies
• Crusty Bread

Tuesday, November 15

• Dutch oven Carnitas

Wednesday, November 16

• Beef Stroganoff
• Crusty Bread
• Salad

Thursday, November 17 -  I have a medial procedure today, so I will be out of it. I have made soup for myself and I will bank on lots of left overs from the other meals for the family.

Friday, November 18

• Meatballs
• Baked Potatoes
• Rolls
• Green Beans or roasted carrots

Saturday, November 19

Chili – I will try and get a recipe up soon.

Menu Plan Monday

I have never done a CSA – Consumer Support Agriculture. The biggest reason is everyone tells you that you will get so many veggies you won’t be able to eat them all. Early on my kids weren’t big veggie eaters, so it didn’t make sense. Now it’s changed and they eat a lot.

The other reason is because you are bound to get things you don’t know what to do with. I am pretty adventuresome now and will try about anything.

I did a lot of research and unfortunately it really comes down to which ones are the closest and have the best drop off location. I narrowed mine down to 2 different ones.

I paid $18 a week for mine. This is my review of French Prairie Gardens CSA.

Week 1

2 small bags of lettuce and a bag of spinach. For our family of four, the salad was gone in 2 meals.

2 containers of strawberries

1 beet, yep 1 lonely beet

4 radishes

asparagus-enough for 2 meals (not larger servings, but I made it last)

I called to ask them a quick question and while I had them on the phone I asked if they were still off to a slow start because of the weather. She SNAPPED back “we gave you $22 worth of food!” Apparently they pick their strawberries by hand…doesn’t everyone??

So not off to a good start. We had to supplement with grocery store veggies. Pretty much everything was gone in 2 meals.

Week 2

Barely 1 meals worth of asparagus

2 pints strawberries

small bags of lettuce. It would have been cheaper and we would have gotten more at the farmers market or at the local grocery store, Haggen, buying locally grown lettuce.

radishes

big bunch of rhubarb – I don’t know what to do with this, so I froze it.

1 lonely beet again. Should have saved the one from last week.

We supplemented with the farmers market. We purchased a pound of giant sugar snap peas that were amazing and a bunch of baby carrots. They were each $3. Eating them with nearly every meal they lasted a whole week, but our kids were gone that week.

Week 3

2 sticks of rhubarb – what does one do with that little? At least I can add it to last weeks.

small bags of lettuce

17 snow peas. Why did I count? Because there were so few.

sugar snap peas, barely more than 17, but I couldn’t make myself count, I couldn’t face the disappointment.

3 pints of strawberries

Supplemented with the farmers market again. While at the farmers market I saw a friend who had 2 bags full of veggies and paid $7.50.  I looked at my husband and said she got way more than us.

Week 4

Finally we have started to hit the CSA jackpot.

6 containers of amazing strawberries

a whole head of lettuce

a very small bag of spring greens

a huge bag of snow peas and sugar snap peas

I have skipped a few weeks, because things were fine. We were getting a decent amount of stuff, but I have had to supplement every.single.week with food from the Farmers Market.

Week 8

Green beans – enough for one meal for my husband and I

Walla walla sweet onions – 3 tiny ones. 2 went into the greens beans

small bag of spring greens. Not quite enough for our family of four, will supplement with Farmers Market

2 containers of Blackberries

2 containers of Blueberries – they do have amazing blueberries

2 small heads of broccoli. One was so filled with aphid it was completely gray on the inside. I tried to clean it out before my family saw. Ended up doing a number on the poor broccoli. When that didn’t work I blanched it, which I was bummed about because I wanted it raw. Still tons of aphid, so I finally threw it out.

This one wasn’t nearly as bad as the others. I didn’t take pictures of the other one, because in trying to get the aphid out I mutilated the broccoli. That’s when I tried blanching them. You can tell by the color of the broccoli that this one was blanched and those dead aphid still held strong.

I sent them an email telling them It was full of bugs, and when I say full I mean the whole inside was gray, and here is their response ::

Hi Amy,

Feel free to soak the broccoli in salt water upside down, or blanch it and
then rinse it with warm water.  We chose not to spray our broccoli and this
year has been a tough one for aphids.  Last week’s broccoli was grown in our
greenhouse, which is the reason why there wasn’t any bugs.  I apologize, but
you can still use it!  It just means we didn’t use any pesticides on the
veggies.

Thanks!

I tried the blanching and you can still see the bugs. I emailed them back and said I had to throw it away, and they never responded back.

My dad is a farmer so I know how bad aphid can be. But my dad had to make sure his stuff wasn’t loaded with aphid or he couldn’t sell it. Unfortunately when you prepay you don’t get the luxury of not getting bugs. (since this I have checked all the broccoli from the Farmers Market, even organic farmers, and no one was selling broccoli that was infested with bugs.)

Not gonna lie, I am so done with CSA. I wish I could get my money back and just buy from the Farmers Market, it’s so much cheaper.

Week 9 & 10

Still slim pickings. For the most part we still pick up our CSA by 4pm on Wednesday and by Friday it’s all gone. So on Friday I run to the Farmers Market, spend $10-$15 and that holds me the rest of the week.

During week 10 I got so few green beans I had to add them to a bunch I had picked up else where in order to make enough for our family. The bunch they gave me was enough for maybe 2 people.

The peaches (4) we got from them were amazing. Those only lasted a few days longer because they had to ripen. What a treat they were though. (And they were the only ones we got all season.)

Other than that pretty lacking still.

Week 11

I went to pick up my veggies today and ran into a lady who did it last year. She said last year there were nearly 20 people doing it and this  year only 5. Hmmm, sounds to me like it was similar last year and many people chose not to do it again.

This week I got carrots, 2 pints of blue berries, a pint of black berries and a big bag of yukon gold potatoes. Also another small container of tomatoes, cucumber and it said zucchini, but I don’t remember if it was in there.  I eat so much zucchini that 1 wouldn’t even make enough for a meal.

This week the potatoes and tomatoes made it through the weekend because we were gone and no one cooked. The rest was gone within days.

I am now officially used to the disappointment.

The few weeks in between were just ok. We had enough to last for a few days. I still supplement with the farmers market.

Week 13

This week was definitely better and even the newsletter said “Mother Nature is coming on strong and we finally have some great produce coming on!”  They couldn’t admit it earlier….

Anyways I got a very small container of blueberries, it lasted about 1 hour. More of these great blackberries, more tomatillos, and I have learned to make amazing salsa verde, if I do say so myself. A few small roma tomatoes, green beans (I picked out of my garden and added to what they gave us to make enough for 1 meal), bell pepper, the worlds smallest cabbage (about 3 inches around), ananheim pepper, yukon gold potatoes (not enough for a meal), and a cucumber.  Because I don’t know what to do with some of the stuff, it will last a little longer. It was all good, and definitely lasted longer than 2 days.

I did supplement with the farmers market again this week and I picked up some tomatoes at a stand 8/$1.

DONE

Well I finally made it to week 18 and we are officially done, and I couldn’t be happier. I quit writing down weekly reviews because it was just so disappointing. I never made it a whole week without having to buy elsewhere.

We got corn the last 3 times and it was pretty good. The cabbage was never bigger than 3 inches across and it was spicy like radishes, not sweet.  We did get some winter squash. The one they gave us was on sale at Fred Meyers this week for 50¢ each.

I ended up with so many Anaheim peppers. A few are fine, but I had a lot in the last 4 weeks. More than I could ever cook with. We got some tiny little apples the last few times that were really good.

I also talked to friends that had done CSA’s through other farms and they were happy and had tons of veggies and paid nearly the same as me.

Overall I was truly disappointed. After this experience I may never do a CSA again.

Anyone else disappointed or did I just choose poorly?

Moral of the review ::  Plant my own garden again!!!

You know me, I love a splurge every now and then. If you have followed me long you can pretty much guess that my splurge will be about food.

There is nothing I love more than a good meal out, with quality food, good portions and great service. We have found that perfect place for breakfast in Salem at Word of Mouth.

I have to say I am so glad it’s not close by because I would be there way too much and probably couldn’t find enough time to workout and to work it off.

We have been to Word of Mouth 3 times now. Well, my husband has been lots more than me because he works from Salem a few days a week. But I have been there 3 times. I love that the quality of food is a high priority for these owners. Just yesterday she picked over 300 lbs of fresh heirloom tomatoes to use in her winter soups.

I love that the Eggs Benedict’s come with 3 eggs. Not that I need 3 eggs, but WOW! And for just $10.50 you can’t beat it. This meal can be easily shared, although I don’t share. If you have never had Creme Brulee French toast, you need to make your way to down to try it out.

We took my in laws today. They like their Biscuits and Gravy, so my father in Law tried the Incredible Flying Biscuit, which is a breakfast tower of buttermilk fried chicken, egg, cheddar cheese, and bacon on a homemade buttermilk biscuit graced with country gravy and served with a side of potatoes.

Plus I just love supporting the locals instead of the chain restaurants. For me, that’s a Money4This expense.

Want to read a full review of Word of Mouth?

If you can make peach salsa then you most surely can make grilled peach salsa right??

A few weeks ago we picked up 72 lbs of peaches. In my mind it seemed like a much smaller amount than it actually was. Nonetheless, we froze some of them and we are now eating and cooking with the rest.

I went online to look at some recipes for peach salsa. Now here’s the thing I love about cooking. Recipes are like guide lines. Follow them once and after that just wing it.

I had to improvise since I was missing a few things, but for the most part I was able to put together a pretty good grilled peach salsa that I used on my fish tacos.

So here is my attempt at a recipe for you.

• 4 large peaches – I drizzled mine with chipotle olive oil for some kick
• 1/2 cup walla walla sweet onions finely chopped – it’s all I had
• 1/2 of a jalapeno pepper finely chopped
• 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
• 1 tbsp lemon juice – I didn’t have a lime

I got out my handy dandy Pampered Chef food chopper for this. Let me tell you why.

I am one of those people that if I even touch a jalapeno my skin catches on fire. The first (and last time) this happened I tried everything I could think of and everything that I read about on the internet to make it stop burning. We even made a store run for aloe vera. The only reason we didn’t go to the ER is because there is nothing they can do and I am incredibly frugal, do you know how much that would have cost?????

Anyways, I finally took a sleeping pill, had my husband take out my contacts and went to bed with my hands in ice. It did finally go away.

So for now on I chop jalapenos with the food chopper. Ok back to the recipe of sorts.

• Grill peaches for about 5 minutes or until you have grill marks. Let cool, then chop finely.
• Add all the other chopped ingredients and allow to sit for at least 20 minutes, the longer the better.

This will keep for a few days in the fridge. This is great served with chips, but I served mine with fish tacos.

Enjoy!

If you planted even one zucchini plant you are looking for ways to use it. If you planted more than one, you are probably the one dropping them on neighbors doorsteps at night, desperately trying to get rid of it.

Don’t worry, there are so many ways to use zucchini, millions of things even, but I am going to show super easy uses for Zucchini.

Zucchini has such a mild flavor it can be used almost anywhere and in the process you can get your 3-5 servings of veggies in daily.

You can bake and cook all kinds of things, I mostly just find meals I can add them too, since I am not much of a rule recipe follower, so no casseroles in here.

DINNER ::

Grilled Zucchini Side Dish (get this down because it is the base for a lot more things)

1. Toss with olive oil and salt and pepper. Not just any salt and pepper, use freshly ground pepper and sea salt.
2. Grill for about 4 minutes per side or until you have grill marks.
3. Always make extra
4. If using a grill pan, mix it with other veggies like green beans, snap peas, onions, peppers, baby carrots sliced thin, broccoli, cabbage or any other favorite.

Fajitas - When sauteing onions and peppers, add in zucchini.(I use Chipotle Olive Oil for a bit of kick.) Top Fajitas with veggies. Heck, forget the meat and make tons of veggies and fill fajitas with veggies and beans.

Zucchini Pancakes - love these as a side dish.  This one has a great tutorial if you are still questioning the process.

BREAKFAST ::

Farmers Market Frittata – These change all summer long, but they always seem to have zucchini in them diced up real small.

Veggie Scramble - If the frittata sounds to overwhelming then just do a scramble.

1. Saute 1/4 c. onions and 1/4 zucchini (take some of the work out by grilling or sauteing extra from another meal) in 1 Tbsp. olive oil.
2. Add 2 beaten eggs
3. Continue to cook until eggs are cooked through
4. Top with 2 Tbsp. cheese
5. Serve

LUNCH ::

Grilled Veggie Sandwiches - take some of the work out by grilling extra the night before.

Quesadilla - Finely chop any left over veggies from dinner.(I made these the other night and couldn’t make them fast enough for my family.)

1. Add to flour tortillas
2. Add cheese
3. Cook until cheese is melted.

Zucchini Bread - this is a great treat, but I won’t lie, I think my mom thought the only use for zucchini growing up was zucchini bread. Therefore, I have only made it a few times as an adult. I would just make sure the recipe had yogurt or sour cream in it to make it extra moist.

Smoothies - Kids love smoothies and they are good for you, so that’s ok. But make them even better by adding veggies. The beauty of zucchini is it’s the one veggie that is so bland it can’t be tasted in a smoothie, yet you will be getting your veggies.

1. 1/2 cup frozen or fresh fruit (if using fresh add ice cubes)
2. 1/4-1/2 cup fruit juice
3. 1/4 cup yogurt
4. 1/2 small zucchini
5. Blend and serve

Slice and serve – Believe it or not you can actually just eat these raw. Dip them in your favorite veggie dip or hummus.

Plus the beauty of zucchini is that is so super affordable and available all year long. Don’t be afraid, just embrace your zucchini.

What other things do you do with zucchini?

Enjoy this guest post from Alexis Bonari

Since adopting minimalism and frugal habits, I’ve cut out most of the luxuries I used to count as part of daily life: eating out at nice French or Italian restaurants, gourmet coffee from the café down the street, buying new and cute clothes every month—you get the picture.

The one thing I will not skimp on, however, is ethical food.

After reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I decided to take on the twisted food industry by supporting local farmers and eating as little of anything that didn’t come directly from the farmers’ market. This is, admittedly, difficult. I’m the crazy lady who makes her own shampoo and fruit juice, but you really can’t expect me to make my own ketchup or grow my own tea, and neither of those is available at the local market. That means I drag my feet to Whole Foods, where I inevitably spend enough money on ethically traded and organic nonsense to make my toes curl.

The Expenses of Eating Ethically

Although there are ways to make the farmers’ market experience thrifty (such as investing in a community-supported agriculture program), locally grown and organic produce tend to be more expensive at the market than they are at certain grocery stores. This isn’t always true, but let’s take a look at my personal experience with the herb, basil.

• At the farmers’ market, a handful of basil (about 2oz) costs $5.
• At my neighborhood grocery store, ¾ oz of basil costs $2.19. It’s not organic and it wasn’t even grown in the United States.
• But wait. The Asian market a few miles down the road sells Thai basil for $2.50 a pound. A pound. That’s 16 oz. For $2.50.

Sure, I could choose to buy produce for eye-poppingly low prices, but I can’t shake the icky feeling I get when I eat something that wasn’t raised locally or organically. Both are significantly better the local economy and even the American food industry as a whole. Buying organic basil from the farmers’ market is not only healthier for my body but it leaves a smaller carbon footprint; the basil traveled down the road as opposed to literally across an entire ocean and then a continent to get into my homemade pizza. For me, there is no price on mindful eating.

Eating Less Tortured Meat

Since converting to a more ethical diet, I have also become something of a (cheating) vegan. Livestock accounts for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. As funny as it is to think that cow burps and other gaseous emissions—you know what I’m talking about—are literally hurting our ozone, it’s no laughing matter. Moreover, most meat sold in grocery stores and all meat sold in fast food chains (what little actual meat can be found) come from animals raised in inhumane and downright sadistic conditions in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operation). As an animal lover, I couldn’t stand the moral dissonance of objecting to animal cruelty by eating a MacDonald’s burger.

Buying meat from the farmers’ market, too, is expensive, which means I buy less for higher quality food and thereby eat less meat in total.

• A pound of bacon at the market is $8.
• A pound of bacon at the neighborhood grocery store is $2.
• A pound of bacon at the Asian market down the road is $4.

If spending a few extra dollars a week means I supported local farmers who cultivate beautiful, grassy fields for happy pigs, cows, and chickens (“happy” up until the whole slaughtering bit, of course), that’s money well spent in my book.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is currently a resident blogger at College Scholarships, where recently she’s been researching military dependent scholarships as well as target scholarships. Whenever this WAHM gets some free time she enjoys doing yoga, cooking with the freshest organic in-season fare, and practicing the art of coupon clipping.

I am writing a short series on how to stop being a spender.  If you haven’t been following start HERE and you can catch up.

If you are back and continuing on, thank you.  Last time we talked about figuring out your priorities.  We talked about my priority, food, but also the priorities of others, such as clothes shopping, decorating the house, watching movies, and so on.  If you missed it, take a minute to read about it HERE so today’s post makes sense.

Did you establish your priorities?  Can you nail down the one thing you really like to spend money on?

You can still be a spender, but you need to spend wisely.  There is a huge difference.

Let’s take my priority for instance. Food.  I can go all over the web and find ladies that are feeding their families (big families) on $100 a week or less.

Could I do that?  If I put my mind to it yes, I could totally do that.  Do I want to?  Nope. Don’t even want to try.

But, I try not to be stupid about it.  Yes, Fillet Mignon would great at every meal, but that’s not going to work.  Instead I watch the ads, I buy things on sale, with coupons and I stock up.  I watch for cuts of meat that I like in the markdown section of the grocery store.  They have to sell it by a certain date or throw it out.  It’s not bad, it just needs to be used right away or frozen.

I love to eat out.  I watch for Groupons, I use the Entertainment Book or watch for coupons in the mail.  I also register with any restaurants that I like in hopes of getting emails with coupons or special dinner prices.

What was happening is we were spending around $900 a month on food, because of the way I was cooking and eating out.  I didn’t want to stop this lifestyle, I just wanted to control it,  to keep having it.

What about clothes shopping?  I heard this comment once, “women dress for other women.”  It’s true.  Men barely notice, our kids don’t notice, but you surely notice every single lady dressed super nice at the mall don’t you?

Why don’t you instead dress for you.  What is that you like?  Do you have to have name brand clothing?  Does it even fit into your budget.  Are you willing to quit eating out to wear that brand?

These are questions you need to think through.  I have printed off coupons for Target clothing lately.  I have a necklace that I get a compliment on every.single.time I wear it.  It was on clearance at Target for $6.  I had these pants once that someone asked me if I got them at Marios.  I had been in one time and knew most things there cost around $150.  I had actually gotten them at Old Navy for $20.

You don’t need to go super “low end” if that’s what you want to call those stores, but you don’t need to have all brand name and you need to limit yourself to how much you purchase.

Once you figure out your priorities cut back in the other areas that aren’t as important.

You need to figure out how to cut back on what it is you like and you also need to figure out how to cut expenses of things that aren’t as important.

Do you have a budget in place? If not, why? Does one of these excuse apply to you?

Continue reading this series…….

Are You a Spender?
I Am a Spender How Do I Change My Ways?
I Am a Spender Trying to Change My Ways

Linked to Frugal Friday

Have you noticed that food prices are rising? Have you also noticed that the deals out there aren’t as good as they used to be?

What is happening?

A year ago I had more instant oatmeal than I could shake a stick at. I had cereal for days and the FREE pasta overflowed. As a lazy cook, I also had plenty of very cheap pasta sauce. Snack bars for the kids were aplenty and canned goods were fully stocked. The catalinas I was getting was scoring me some cheap fruits and veggies.

My pantry was so full my son would open the door and show people when they came to visit. I had so much pasta sauce that I had an avalanche one day and lost a few jars in the collapse.

I had ziploc bags and containers that I had gotten for free.

But today is different. I rarely buy cereal and if I do the best I can do is $1.50 a box. The oatmeal this year was just over a $1 box compared to the 20¢ a box I was getting last year same time.

The bananas in our area jumped one day from from 59¢ to 64¢. Zucchini is $2.50 lb. A head of lettuce that was $1 a head a few weeks back is now $1.89 and much smaller.

My last baggie purchase was store brand because it was so much cheaper, and they weren’t even close to free.

Between the cost of fuel rising rapidly and the winter freezes affecting our food, the prices are going up and up.

It doesn’t stop there. The deals are becoming less and less. I follow 3 deal blogs pretty consistently, but rarely  do I make the rounds to the stores. The gas prices don’t justify me driving around for gum. It is free gum, but I don’t need gum!!

In February I spent nearly $800 in food. That is almost double my budget. That’s not eating out, that’s just food. I know it was my birthday month (yes I celebrate all month) and I did have some parties and different things, but $800??

Has anyone else noticed the prices going up and the deals going down?