B is for Banana

Carrying on in my new TT tradition (this is my 5th edition)... here are 13 foods that start with the letter B.

1. Bananas - my daughter's first food
2. Bacon - makes any sandwich better
3. Blueberry muffins - best when warm
4. Burritos - the more stuffed the better
5. Buns - Merita Lite Wheat, 'nuff said
6. Borscht - do people really eat beet soup?
7. Bread - we've been trying to avoid breads made with high fructose corn syrup, but that is hard to do
8. Bass - as in seabass... caught some once on a deep-sea fishing trip and blackened it up for dinner... yummiest bass I ever ate
9. Butter - not really a food in and of itself, but definitely a worthy ingredient!
10. Butterscotch - my palate isn't discerning enough I suppose because suddenly I can't remember the different between this and caramel
11. Beans - great for vegetarian dinner nights
12. Bagels & Bialys - a two-fer here... both great breakfast treats, especiall the Cinamon Crunch bagel from Panera Bread
13. Buffalo - I've never eaten this myself, but heard it is a very lean and good for you protein

Head on over to Thursday 13 for more list fun!

Gobble, Gobble

At about 9 pm this evening, I e-mailed Murray's Farm about the place our new turkey grew up on. And wouldn't you know it, by 10:20 pm I had a response! I can't believe someone was up working this late on a Sunday. I sure hope he at least gets next Sunday (Easter) off!

The nice guy working this late, Steve Gold, fixed up the problem I was having and now I know - my turkey came from Koch's Turkey Farm. I'm not going to take the step of naming my new turkey (that is now frozen waiting for the right time to be eaten), but it is neat to know that he had a whole farm to roam around on and ate lots of yummy veggies.

Since I don't live anywhere near a Whole Food's and I can't normally afford a $35 turkey, I will make sure I enjoy every bite of our new turkey! And remember, I promised to tell you all about it once we cook the bird up!

Free Bird

If I leave here tomorrow

Would you still remember me?

For I must be travelling on, now,

cause there's too many places I've got to see.

But, if I stayed here with you, girl,

Things just couldn't be the same.

cause I'm as free as a bird now,

And this bird you can not change.

I'm not really "free as a bird," but I did get a free bird today during my grocery trip. A dear family friend gave me a coupon for a free Norbest Turkey and I finally had a chance to use it today. It was an even better deal though because my Publix doesn't sell Norbest birds, so I got a Murray's Farm turkey! Their birds are raised the way nature intended on a family farm with no antibiotics nor hormones. There is even a really neat feature to learn more about the family farm your bird was raised on. I had some trouble with the code on the front of my turkey so I don't know which farm my turkey grew up on, but I do know my turkey was raised in "idyllic Blue Mountains in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster countryside." This was a $35 turkey that I got for free! Thanks Debbie! I did freeze it and will let you know when we cook it and all the wonderful things I use it for.

Since I only used $9 of last week's budget, I had $41 to spend this week. With that, so far I've only spent $30.79, which puts me UNDER BUDGET for 2 weeks in a row! Woo hoo! I might go back out tomorrow to buy some more frozen or canned veggies, thereby just being on budget. We'll see how the schedule goes.

And finally, since this post is already long, I think I'll make it just a tad longer and ask for your help. I purchased a bag of lentils today ($1.29) at Publix because I really want to try them. I understand they are incredibly healthy and a very frugal food. Maybe I even read somewhere that they are very good at taking on the flavor of other ingredients. (I'd compare them to tofu on that point, but then my husband might not eat them.) Here is where you, my wonderful readers, come in.

Please share with me ideas for preparing lentils. Sure, I could google lentil recipes (and probably will anyway), but how will I know if they are any good? Leave a comment with your time-tested, family-tasted favorite lentil recipes so that I know what the heck to do with these little green beans.

Oops!

Last week I didn't plan a menu. That resulted in us eating spaghetti and sandwiches for dinner most nights. Surprisingly, Bruce was a very good sport about the spartan meals. I don't think he minded too much though since it meant fewer pots and pans for him to clean up.

I didn't post it yet, but I did make a run to the grocery store last week. It was a little early on in the week, but I went on Friday night. Here is my receipt:

I know, I know... I altered it. I spent over $30 and you are probably wondering why did I scratch through some of the items? The explanation is simple... we went to Disney the next day and I needed to pack a lunch. I knew it would be cheaper to buy sandwich stuff than try and eat in the park (it was), so really those groceries took the place of a meal out while we entertained some friends for the day. That's why they don't count and I officially declare myself UNDER BUDGET for the week. :)

Now, I am preparing to go out and do our grocery shopping for this coming week. I'll be back later to post my receipt and my menu.

Spaghetti Stick

Does anyone else ever have a hard time trying to figure out how much dry spaghetti to make per person? We never seem to get it right at our house. I usually make too much and Bruce usually makes too little. And those times when I measure it to get exactly one serving (like when I am on Weight Watchers), I always laugh at the portion size. It is about half of what I really want to give myself.

Bruce recently asked me to buy him that gadget with the holes in it that suggest how much pasta you need for a certain amount of people. I do try to be frugal so when I found this one at the local thrift store yesterday for only 25 cents, I just scooped it into my basket... without even really looking too close.

I seriously doubt it is going to solve MY portion size problem though... at least Bruce and teenagers will be eating well.

A is for Apple

I decided to make my life easier for the near future and stick with my alphabet theme for Thursday Thirteen. And because I enjoy order more than chaos, I am starting with the letter A. Oh, and to make this more of a challenge, I am NOT googling foods or using a dictionary! That would ruin my fun.

1. Apple (duh!)
2. Apricot
3. Anchovie (I've never actually had one.)
4. Angel hair pasta
5. Artichoke dip
6. Apple jacks cereal (can I use apple twice, esp since there really isn't any apple in this cereal?)
7. Anise (a spice, right?)
8. Akaskan salmon
9. Acorn squash
10. Asian food (like egg rolls and potstickers, yummy!)
11. Ahi tuna (I prefer my tuna from a can)
12. Albacore tuna
13. Asparagus

Wow... that is mostly produce. I wonder if the rest of my lists will work out like that. Stay tuned next week for the letter B!

Go to Thursday Thirteen for more list fun!

Chili & Naan

Okay, so this post is a week past due. I've had the photos uploaded for several days now and just couldn't find a moment to put them together with the words in my head. I particularly enjoyed this meal both because it was tasty and because it was the first time I ever kneaded bread.

I found this box of naan bread in my pantry and am pretty certain it came from Big Lots for $0.70. How can I be so certain you might ask? Well, because there was a big orange sticker on the front of the box before I peeled it off to take this picture. Hee hee.

The first step to making a yeast bread is to proof the yeast. While I've never had any formal breadmaking experiences, my highly educated guess is you do that to make sure your yeast is good, so the yeast may prove itself. Fortunately for me, the yeast hadn't been hanging out in my pantry so long that it went bad. I found it nice and foamy when I checked on it after 10 minutes in its warm sugar bath.

Once the dough got going, I started in on the chili. Oops... it is expired. But that rarely stops me from using an ingredient... especially one like this in which the components are just dried vegetables and spices. I dumped this Bear Creek bag of chili mix into a pot of just boiling water and added 1-6 oz. can of tomato paste and some leftover ground, browned sausage. The directions said to cook for something like 10 minutes? However, my onions were extra hydrated from all the years in storage, so I added a wee bit more liquid and cooked it for closer to 30 minutes, basically until my nann was done.

Here you can see my lovely first attempt at hand-done bread making (I've used a bread machine before which did all of the kneading for me.). I never realized how much work it is to knead bread. My goodness! I only had to go for 3-5 minutes but my hands got worn out fast. I thought all the typing I did would have built up my finger muscles, but that wasn't so. I've had naan at Indian restaurants before and it was always larger and flatter than the naan I made. I think I left mine a bit too thick, but it still came out tasty. The denseness of the naan worked nicely with the heartiness of the chili. If the naan had been too light and fluffy it would not have held up its share of the meal.

Much to my delight, Bruce really enjoyed this meal. The extra naan stored well for lunches. I just added cheese to my chili, but Bruce was hungrier and put his over rice, and then added twice as much cheese as I did.

From my stash I used both the chili mix and the naan. The sausage was also from my stash and made an appearance in 3 different meals last week. It was pretty rubbery!

Thirteen T Foods

I want to try and keep my Thursday 13 list on this blog food related. To do that might be a stretch for me, but since this is only my 3rd week participating it shouldn't be too hard, right? Wrong, I'm tired. I still haven't posted the pictures from dinner last night. But I want to play, so this week, enjoy my Sesame Street edition of Thursday 13....

13 Foods that Start with the Letter 'T'

1. Tacos
2. Tortillas
3. Tamales
4. Tomatoes
5. Texas Toast
6. Turtle Soup
7. Total Cereal
8. Tangerine
9. Turkey
10. Tapas
11. Tea (technically a beverage, but this is harder than I thought)
12. Tar-tar, as in steak
13. Taters (does this count?)

Sponsored by the letter 'T.' Click here for more Thursday 13 list goodness.

Grocery Shopping

I did my weekly shopping on Saturday afternoon. And this week I took a picture of my receipt! I wasn't slacking in the budget department in previous weeks, I was just slacking in the blogging department. I came in just under budget, spending $24.91. There really wasn't anything spectacular about my shopping trip.




I also planned my menu for the week.

• Monday - Spaghetti
• Tuesday - Chili w/ pork sausage
• Wednesday - Homestyle Chicken Bake (some pre-packaged thing that I found deep in my pantry)
• Thursday - Slow-Cooker Apricot Chipotle Chicken, from MGFK
• Friday - English Muffin Pizza

Exciting isn't it. I really haven't had to get into the super creative meal planning that I expected... maybe in another few weeks?