This week in groceries: where did the money go?

Well, my ice cream was melting so I didn’t take much time to arrange my groceries, but here they are. One week’s worth of food for two people. This week was a little abnormal since I didn’t buy any kind of bread bought very little bread or other grain products but I went a little more nutso than normal on the produce. Here’s what we ended up with:

Produce: $29.83 $32.81
peaches, 1.44 lb; nectarines, 1.77 lb.; cherries, 1.27 lb.; zucchini, 1 lb.; celery, 1.4 lb.; corn, 5 ears; red onion, .55 lb.; red peppers, 2; green onions, 2 bunches; carrots, 1 lb.; baby lettuces, 10 oz.; strawberries, 2 lb.; tomatoes, 2.09 lb.; watermelon, 21.66 lb.; romaine lettuce, 3 heads; cucumber, 1

Grains: $5.98
flatbread, 11.2 oz.; corn chips, 1 lb.

Meats: $14.42
steaks, 2.61 lb.; boneless, skinless chicken breasts, 3.02 lb.

Dairy: $15.46
1/2 & 1/2, 1 qt.; ice cream, 1/2 gallon; plain yogurt, 1 qt., feta cheese, 8 oz.

Prepared foods & sweets: $9.58
frozen pizza, 12 in.; clam chowder, 1 qt., black olives, 1 can; candy bars, 6

Beverages: $10.58
Crystal Light (makes 12 qt.); coffee, 1.1 lb.

Food expenditure for one week: $63.28 $78.13 (total reflects a “$10 off total purchase” coupon)

I still need to buy coffee, romaine lettuce, cucumbers and pita bread which will probably bump us right up to our $75 budget. Update: I added what I picked up at one last trip to the store to the totals above, but not to the photo.

Menu & grocery list for 6/16-6/23

I’m headed out of town for a week on Wednesday so I’m not planning as many meals as I normally would. It’s always different to cook for one. I’ll probably pick up something extra for Jeff to grill, but his family will be in town this weekend so he’ll also eat several meals with them.

Grilled chicken with watermelon & feta salad: ok, I’m pretty sure I’m the last person out there to try some version of this salad (though I don’t think I’m going to add black olives a la Nigella, even though I’ve only heard good things about that recipe).

Ricotta fritatta: I’ll probably make this with zucchini added as one of the reviewers suggested. This will use up the rest of the ricotta cheese from last week, plus we have plenty of eggs. I wish I had a good stove-to-oven pan, but I’ll figure it out.

Grilled steak with salad and corn, grilled peaches over vanilla ice cream for dessert: no recipes here, just a straight summer meal. If you’ve never tried grilled peaches though, you’re missing out. Just cut them in half, pull out the pit, and put some butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in the middle. Start them skin side down on foil, and turn them when they start to soften up. They’ll be ready when you’re finished eating the main course!

Grilled pita with Greek salad: if I were choosing themes for each week this week would obviously be “grilled”! Actually, I think I’ll probably just heat these in a regular oiled frying pan on the stove. The recipe calls for a grill pan, but they’ve always seemed a little unnecessary to me, particularly when we don’t have a lot of storage space.

Grocery List:
Safeway: (normally Fred Meyer has the best deal on the groceries I buy, but this week one of the (3!) Safeways in town is having a “grand re-opening” with lots of sales and coupons including one for $10 off a $50 purchase.)
nectarines $1/lb
chicken breasts $1.99/lb
corn 5/$2
red peppers 2/$3
pitas
feta
milk
1/2& 1/2
yogurt
vanilla ice cream
steaks
baby lettuce
zucchini
black olives

Thriftway:
tomatoes $0.99/lb
peaches $0.69/lb
crystal light $3.99
watermelon $0.29/lb

Costco:
Romaine lettuce
Cucumbers
coffee

Pantry items: garbanzo beans, olive oil, eggs, ricotta cheese, herbs & spices, butter

Thrifty? Us?

Where did our $75/week grocery budget come from, anyway? Honestly, it was what I had estimated we were spending on groceries before I actually went back over the statements from last year. It just sounded about right. In reality, we were spending over $500 most months. I was aghast at this figure, but it turns out it’s somewhere between a “moderate” and “liberal” food budget according to the USDA. Our $300/month budget, on the other hand, is much closer to the USDA’s “thrifty food plan”, a topic that’s been popular recently (the comments are especially interesting on that last link). Knowing that $300/month for two people is considered “thrifty” makes me feel a little better about managing to go over budget every month. Knowing that there are plenty of other people who are successfully eating well on $75/week, however, makes me wonder why we’re having trouble.

Although I know how much we’ve spent on groceries for the past six months, I don’t know how those dollars break down.  Is it our produce habit that breaks us?  Too much meat? I’m inspired by this NPR review of the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats; over the next month I am going to keep track of not only what we spend, but how we spend it.  I think the pictures of a weeks worth of groceries are absolutely fascinating–I’m hoping my library will order the book because I really want to see what the rest of the families eat each week!

Food for thought: Plenty

Inspired by a meal created from ingredients found within walking distance, authors Alisa Smith and James (J.B.) MacKinnon decided to spend a year eating only what could be grown, raised, foraged, or caught within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver, B.C. home. They chronicled their “raucous year of eating locally” in Plenty (or, as it is titled in Canada, The 100-Mile Diet) and continue to write about eating locally at www.100milediet.org.

Each author wrote chapters from his or her point of view, a technique that can be distracting if the voices are too distinct, but one that seemed to work for this book. The challenges of eating locally occasionally seemed to cause (or at least intensify) challenges in their relationship. These vignettes seem, at first, tangential to the topic of eating locally until you consider just how often we negotiate food in a relationship. What restaurant shall we choose? What do you want from the store? What’s for dinner?

Eating locally in the face of a global food market is bound to be challenging. Many react to the idea of the 100-mile diet by assuming it’s not possible where they live; I have to admit I’m a little guilty of this myself. Plenty, however, is not prescriptive; Smith and MacKinnon aren’t calling on their readers to do exactly what they did. They write early in the book about wanting to challenge themselves to eat locally rather than a desire for a staunch devotion to rules. Perhaps local eating will look a little different where you live, but don’t assume it’s not possible without looking into it. Although Smith and MacKinnon “walked smack into a year of strict 100-mile eating“, an experiment that provided great experiences to write about, they recommend learning from their mistakes and figuring out what will work for you. Even one local meal is a place to start.

Looking at my 100 miles I’ve already discovered we would have access to wheat, apples and other orchard fruits, plus nearly all the fruits, veggies, meat and dairy products available at our local farmers’ market. With some planning, preserving, and a maybe a little more freezer space, it looks like we actually might be able to comfortably go localvore. Well, ok, I’m sure we’d still drink coffee, but it’s a start!

Obviously Plenty has already inspired me to consider my foodshed. Now if we could just find a source for locally-sourced Snickers bars, Jeff might be willing to go along with me….

Find Plenty in a library.
Find Plenty in a bookstore.

Menu and grocery list for 6/9-6/16

Though I have been lousy at posting it, we have continued to plan meals and shop once a week. We still tend to go over our grocery budget, but we’re spending a lot less than we did last year, and wasting less food too. There are still some things in the fridge that we need to use up this week, but for the most part we’re out of everything. Jeff has also started working, which means he needs foods that are calorie-dense, easy to pack, and easy to eat on the go. His ideal lunch involves jerky, string cheese, nuts, an apple, and at least one candy bar, so those kinds of things will be on the list too.

Oddly, considering Jeff’s penchant for cheese, we seem to have a lot cheese that is soon to be past its prime. I’m going to attempt this recipe for corn, cheese, and chili tamales in an effort to use up a slightly moldy brick of cheddar. I’ve never made tamales before– in fact I’ve never even eaten a tamale before!–so this should be a nice (if labor-intensive) change of pace. I’ll make some kind of chicken soup to go with these, probably with the leftovers from the grilled chicken we’ll make earlier in the week.

Vietnamese salad rolls are one of our favorites, a nice cool dinner on a hot day and a good way to use up some leftover mint and some of the basil I actually managed to grow. There are lots of recipes out there, but they’re all different and none quite describe the way we like to make them. I’ll try to remember to post a photo of ours.

Our farmers’ market is finally open for the season so I picked up a few things yesterday like tiny yellow squash, Italian green beans, and peapods. I might go back on Wednesday as well and pick up a few more veggies for some kind of spring-y pasta dish. Most of the booths had broccoli, peas in various varieties, and squashes, so it shouldn’t be hard to come up with something delicious.

Safeway has whole chickens on sale so, as I mentioned above, I’ll pick up one of those to grill. We have new neighbors who recently asked us if we grill every night. When the weather heats up we pretty much do! This particular evening we were caught in a thundershower though, so that may have been why he asked. They also have Copper River salmon for $7.99/lb.. I rarely buy seafood, particularly salmon since I’m used to eating it right off the boat, but Copper River salmon is decent (though it’s got nothing on Mar-Shel salmon!)

So, to sum up this week’s menu:
Tamales & chicken soup
Grilled chicken (with salad)
Grilled salmon (with green beans)
Vietnamese salad rolls
Veggie pasta (with ricotta cheese)

Grocery list:
Fred Meyer:
milk
red peppers $1.25/ea
nectarines $1.98/lb
romas $0.99/lb
BBQ pork (for salad rolls)
peppercorns

Safeway:
whole chicken $0.79/lb
salmon $7.99/lb

Anywhere:
1/2 & 1/2
ricotta cheese (for pasta)
eggs

bean sprouts
cucumbers
poblano peppers
avocados
tomatillos
radishes
onions

bananas

frozen corn
pasta
jerky
candy bars
cereal

corn husks

Pantry items:

masa harina, cheddar cheese, basil, cilantro, mint, rice wrappers, rice noodles, garlic, olive oil