I’m all about the challenges this year.
This one has to do with food. I actually tend to follow along with Jessica Fisher every time she does this, even if I’m not formally participating. It reminds me that we should actually be eating from the stuff in the pantry. (Or the fridge or the freezer.) Otherwise, I go through periods where I throw away a lot of food, and that always makes me feel terrible.
So here is an update about how it is going with the grocery budget and trying to use what we have, with more detail than you probably wanted to know.
And just as a recap, these are our vital stats:
9 people… including a pregnant mom, a dad, a 16 year old boy, a 9 year old boy who’s hitting a growth spurt, four more boys age 7 and under (including a 5 yo I’m trying to bulk up), and a 13 year old girl. If you’re counting, yes, that is 6 boys and only 1 girl.
We’re all gluten-free. I’m gluten-free under doctor’s orders, but my husband tries to eat gluten-free for his migraines and we suspect that a couple of our kids also have issues with gluten. Therefore, our entire family eats gluten-free.
In December
I actually began trying to eat down our pantry in December. I used all my canned salmon and most of my tuna plus about 3 lbs of pistachios I found hiding in the freezer, I donated all the canned beans that nobody seems to like, all the canned pumpkin and coconut milk went to making custards, and we did a good job of eating the frozen salmon I discovered in the back of the freezer from when we’d stocked up at one of Whole Foods’ “One Day” sales some time ago. I used up more of our stock of steel cut oats (though we still have a lot) and did better at serving leftovers instead of having to throw them away because they had somehow retreated to the back of the fridge. The only bump in the road came around Christmas time when a stomach virus started going around (it’s still lingering, but I think everybody in the world has it right now) and nobody felt like eating the Christmas leftovers.
Week One
Since we had run out of some of our staples around New Year’s, Andy had to go to Costco to replenish them. Because I never know how long it will be before we can go to Costco again, I told him that he might as well stock up — in the hopes that we’ll be able to spend less the rest of the month. He bought maple syrup, canned salmon and tuna, olive oil, Italian seasoning and vanilla, 5# frozen green beans, a lot of frozen OJ, frozen fruit mix and frozen blueberries for smoothies, cheese (including some Dubliner), gluten-free chicken sausages, and milk, in addition to some produce: lemons, limes, and brussel sprouts. He also stocked up on toilet paper and paper towels.
Then he made a Whole Foods run to buy more milk (we go through about a gallon a day), eggs, cream, bananas (yes, I know they’re more expensive at Whole Foods, but I hate Costco’s bananas and we’re trying to keep our grocery runs to two stores) , and, um, bacon, which for some reason has become a staple around here when it never was before. He also bought some GF crackers, tortilla chips, and kefir… to help us bulk up on our probiotics a bit because of the stomach bug.
All of that put us over our weekly budget, but hopefully it will all balance by the end of the month.
Here’s what we ate the week of New Year’s, as near as I can reconstruct it:
Monday (New Year’s Eve): beef roast with mushrooms and home-brewed muscadine wine (a gift from a friend of Andy’s; it wasn’t all drunk upon opening, so in order to use it up, I made a sauce with it, which was very good), mashed potatoes, some kind of vegetable… maybe peas?
Tuesday (New Year’s Day): Dinner at my inlaw’s. I was able to eat the ham and green beans which she prepared, and I brought Hoppin’ John and homemade coleslaw. We ate leftover ham and some sweet potatoes from the pantry for supper.
Wednesday: pork chops with apples and onions, mashed potatoes, roasted carrots
Thursday: Crockpot ham and potatoes, made with the leftover ham bone, a few sliced chicken sausages, a parmesan rind I had been saving for flavor, and of course potatoes; frozen green beans
Friday: Spanish omelet (I make mine with feta… and happily discovered that the “little bit of feta” I thought I needed to use up in the fridge was actually a whole container of feta in brine!
Saturday: Nachos and/or chicken sausages. We were out in the afternoon until dinner.
Sunday: spaghetti (with sauce I’d discovered in the freezer when I cleaned it out on Saturday, the mushrooms I needed to use up sauteed and added in), fresh carrots from the garden
Lunches were mostly cheese and GF crackers with possibly some salami or beef snack sticks, leftover crockpot ham and potatoes or Hoppin’ John, or buttered GF pasta with asiago (that I found on manager’s special last time I went to Kroger).
Breakfasts (if I remember correctly): puff pancake (I use rice and tapioca flour), oatmeal porridge, oat and banana cakes (with leftover oatmeal and a very, very, very ripe banana), homemade pork sausage and eggs, and GF raisin scones and raisin bread (from Gluten Free Cooking for the Holidays).
Week Two:
(this week)
This weekend I cleaned out the big freezer and the weather was nice enough to work in the garden, so I made inventories of those to help me use what I have. I found 3 quart bags of grated squash in the freezer (the last remains of an old harvest) and used them to make this incredibly awesome gluten-free zucchini bread, which turned out better than any wheat-based zucchini bread I have ever made. I’d been considering abandoning summer squash in the garden this year, since the squash bugs always decimate it come July and it still seems like we have more than we can use in the freezer, but this bread has changed my mind!
The other big surprise from my freezer was a big bag of beef marrow bones. I thought I had used them all, but apparently not. I roasted them and am making bone broth. I’ll use some broth this week for cooking and freeze the rest.
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that many of our winter greens have shrugged off our recent snow and cold weather and are putting out new leaves. These new leaves — of chard, kale, and bok choy — are especially good in salads, which I ate yesterday for lunch along with some leftover spaghetti (I found the sauce in the freezer, too).
We also pulled some beets which I roasted with olive oil for dinner last night, to accompany our lamb ribs. I didn’t do a good job of thinning the beets, so we didn’t get many of them. There are probably enough still in the ground for one more dinner.
And I used up the sprouted rice/quinoa blend that has been hanging around for a long time.
Today’s meals:
Breakfast: zucchini bread (couldn’t resist) and milk for the kids, plus scrambled eggs for me
Lunch: Nachos (“Cheesy Nachooos,” says my two year old), oranges for the kids; leftover lamb, beets, and a green salad for me
Dinner: I’m planning on Spaghetti Carbonara, made with GF pasta, maybe some kale from the garden on the side
More goals for the week:
- Use up the 3 qt. bags of frozen cherries I found in the freezer, in smoothies or baked goods
- Continue to make and freeze bone broth
- Orange marmalade with the oranges I bought in bulk last month. I’m not sure how much longer they’ll store.
Three Plus Two Homeschool 