She Says: Gray Skies, Colorful Dinner.
Hi Everyone! How are you? I am doing well. Due to my antenna television I am currently enjoying my first episode of The New Adventures of Old Christine. It’s kind of funny.
I went to Mark’s gym again. I am not brave enough to use the machines yet. I don’t know what it is. I think it’s all the giant tanned dudes walking around. I wish I could take pictures to show you the people who frequent a North Jersey gym in the middle of the day. No pictures, but I did run 4 miles and ellipticized for 20 mins. while reading Shape w/ the girl from High School Musical on the cover.
After this I went (sweaty and nasty) to Target to get a coffee pot. I couldn’t take another caffeineless morning. I also had to buy some milk because I made a fatal error last week … I bought milk that expired the very next day. Grrr. I got Silk Soymilk Light because it was on sale, doesn’t expire until March and Mark believes he can’t have cow milk (even though he eats copious amounts of cheese and yogurt). I’ve never had soy milk, so I will have to let you know what happens tomorrow! Anyone drink this? What can I expect? Anyway, it brought this week’s total was more like $121.
Also, I made a marvelous side dish today! Creating it made me happy.
Sweet Potato Brussels Sprouts
Ingredients
- Brussels Sprouts
- Sweet Potatoes
- Olive Oil
- Garlic
- Black Pepper
- Balsamic Vinegar
- Dijon Mustard
- Honey
I microwaved about 2 cups of frozen Brussels Sprouts for 30 seconds, then cut them in half. I cut a sweet potato into circles, and then halved them and nooked for about 2 mins so they were a little soft. In a pan, I heated olive oil and garlic, then I added the Brussels Sprouts, sweet potatos and a little black pepper. I cooked them until the BSs started to get a little crisp and almost burnt on the ends. About 3-4 minutes Then I poured in some balsamic vinger and dijon mustard and stirred everything around. When everything was done I drizzled a tube of honey from Christmas stocking on top.
It was delicious and mad the perfect side dish to my dinner.
Food Shopping on a Budget Month
I can already see how I am not very good at food shopping on a budget. When I was buying milk at Target it took a lot today for me not to grab a few “must have” food items. I would have grabbed a bag of blue corn tortilla chips if I did not remember our goal this month is to save money on food. They were glaring at me from the end of the aisle, but I resisted those and the Z-bars!
In my quest, I’ve been searching online for tips. I found these today here from Shape.
“Jot down your grocery list at home and stick to it at the store,” says Thompson. Deciding what you need in advance helps you avoid pricey impulse buys.
“Fill small baggies with 100-calorie servings of whole-grain cereal or crackers instead of buying individually wrapped packages,” says Holly Scherer, R.D., a health educator at the University of Michigan.
“Beef, poultry, and fish can add up to as much as a quarter of your food budget,” says Judith Rodriguez, R.D., a nutrition professor at the University of North Florida. Try thrifty sources of protein, like beans, eggs, and tofu.
Take advantage of produce bargains at wholesale stores by splitting the bounty with friends or neighbors. “Sharing allows you to avoid waste and save cash,” says Hope Warshaw, R.D., author of Eat Out, Eat Right.
Use coupons to stock up on nonperishable items like pasta, canned beans, and marinara sauce. “That way you’ll have healthy options on hand and won’t need to order in as often,” says Thompson.
Tags: brussels sprouts, dr. prager's, Food Shopping on a Budget, honey, sweet potatoes
January 7th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
I plan out a weekly menu, meaning I make up 7 days worth of meals, but I try to vary them greatly, so that I can still give in to cravings. Like, if I feel like pasta, I’ll have one of the pasta dishes that was on the weekly list. If that makes sense. That is probably the hardest part for me, because a lot my relationship with food is based on eating what I want, not “what’s scheduled.” But this method seems to help.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I plan my meals out some, probably not as much as I should.
Your sweet potato brussels sprouts dish looks great!
January 7th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
love to roasted veggies! My fav! I am a crazy planner (as I said before
January 7th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
When I’m watching my budget, those little “extras” are the things that always get me! Sometimes I don’t even realize that I go to Target for $5 worth of stuff and end up spending $25.
I usually plan a couple dinners a week and then make sure I have enough other things on hand to eat whatever I feel like. I have found that if I plan a dinner and lunch for every night, I end up with extra food going bad at the end of the week because I wasn’t in the mood for what I planned.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Your sweet potato brussel sprouts look yummy! Interested to hear what you think of the soy milk!
January 7th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Ooh – I love your side dish! I don’t meal plan b/c I’m the same as you – I want to wait and see what I feel like to make something. However, I’ve started to go grocery shopping only once a week and buying just enough to get me through that week. So during the week, I make myself figure something out from what’s already at home.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I need to start meal planningbut like you I like to decide what I cook right before hand. How am I going to know what I’m in the mood for Friday when I’m planning on Sunday.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I’m not a huge meal planner. I usually know one or two meals/recipes I want to do that week, so I get the things I need for that, and then I just make sure I stock up on enough veggies/fruit/milk/yogurt/whatever so that I can create on the fly. I always write a list, but if something on the list doesn’t look good, I don’t get it. If something else is on sale (say broccoli instead of cauliflower), then I might get that instead. I know how much produce I can consume without it going bad, so it usually works pretty well.
I’m also a costco shopper, but only for non-perishables or things I can freeze, since it’s just me. I always have a stocked fridge/freezer/pantry so that I only have to stop and pick up a few things if the mood hits me.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I don’t plan all meals, but I do look through my cookbooks over the weekend and try to pick out one or two recipes that I want to try. Then I try and get those items at the store on Sunday, depending on if they’re available or on sale. If they’re not there, I substitute, which is fun. I like thinking on the spot like that.
(Hope that helped!)
January 7th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Well, you’ve got the “cut down meat” part down!
Oh how I laughed!
I need Mark’s e-mail unless you can fwd him that message I sent you earlier.
I plan five meals a week (on Saturday) and make the grocery list at the same time – then I hit it up on Sunday. Nice an easy plus lots of leftover lunches for my baby.
The other day I googled “New Jersey stereotypes” and was confused by a lot of the references – keep educating me! It’s fascinating!
If you hit the weight room in TX, you might get the chance to see lots of TX pride tattoos – even the confederate flag. Oh mercy!
January 7th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
We always plan our meals before we go to the grocery store. We have a list of about 20-25 meals that we typically do, so we choose 5-6 of those for the week (1 day for going out and possibly 1 day for leftovers…however the boy likes to take leftovers for his lunches). Also, if there’s something on a blog I’ve seen that I wanna try, we may add that to our list of meals…get some variety! I’ll also check the store’s ads/coupons to see if there’s something there that we would want for one of the meals. Then I make my list from those meals, and off to the store we go! I am DEFINITELY a list person. I MUST have a list otherwise I will forget something or buy things that I don’t need.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
I’ve been trying to always go to the store with a list. I also limited my trips to Fresh Market to payday only to buy a few treats for myself. The rest of the month I go to a regular, much cheaper grocery store.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
I have probably been going about meal planning in a strange way now that I think about it. Basically, I know roughly how much food my husband and I will go through on a week. I have a pretty good stockpile of pastas, grains, legumes, etc., as well as a decent stock pile of frozen meats in my freezer (chicken, mahi mahi, tilapia, and actually some ribs I got on sale – yech, for my husband, not for me).
So basically every week, I’ll see what veggies and fruits are on sale, get some frozen vegetables to round out some meals, and then I’ll plan out in my head meals for the week using my stockpile and fresh produce. Does that make sense?
And don’t worry, you’ll get better with food shopping on a budget! You’re already resisting Zbars, which is a big step!
(haha I got like 3 boxes of Z bars for Christmas, apparently my obsession and my frugality are apparent). Remember too – sometimes with seeing all the yummy food creations out there and new food products featured in the foodie blogging community, it’s hard, but just know that you don’t need to be healthy and enjoy super tasty food by dropping $3 on one serving of yogurt and you can just as easily make your own hummus, tortilla chips, etc.
January 7th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
P.S. Whenever I get my butt in gear and get my blogroll back up, I’m adding y’all to it!
January 8th, 2009 at 12:24 am
I’ve tried Silk before – it was pretty good! I hope that you feel the same way.
That side dish is amazing – I happen to have both of those in my kitchen right now, so perhaps I will have to copy you later this week!
I really don’t meal plan, and I often do a lot of impulse buys. I usually buy the same things every time I go to the store. I am boring – and I’d like to say that I will plan out a meal and then go buy the ingredients…but I never do it, so I’ve given up trying!
What did you decide on the teaching certificate, by the way? I’m just catching up on all things Heather, so I’m sorry if I missed the ultimate decision!
January 8th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Vanilla soy milk + puffins = HEAVEN! (esp. the peanut butter ones!)
My husband is a *HUGE* milk drinker and he recently asked me to only by soy milk because he likes it better
January 8th, 2009 at 12:33 am
Yes I semi-meal plan! How so? hmmm tough question Marge.
Ask Homer.
just kidding. So I buy produce that I can use for several things that week- i.e: bell peppers in chicken cacciatore, bell peppers for fajitas, bell peppers for salads… or apples for topping on pork, apples for eating on a salad, apples for eating with oatmeal, etc.
I try to use it in as different ways but all within the time frame of its freshness. I also buy alot of frozen stuff or freezeable stuff – like chicken sausages- I can make two for a sandwhich for each of us, then use it ground up for pasta sauce, or in scrambled eggs, or freeze the uncooked sausage for another meal next week..
hope this was helpful!
January 8th, 2009 at 1:27 am
Sweet potatoes AND brussels!! Yum!
Sometimes I meal plan and sometimes I don’t. I usually just make a list of recipes that I want to try, write down the basic ingredients, and see what happens. When Bobby and I were long distance last spring it was a lot easier to meal plan for just me, but my meals were also a lot more boring.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:37 am
I haven’t tried the light version of Silk, but I drink the unsweetened kind. And I also drink other brands of soy milk, but the best kind would be homemade soymilk. Yep, my mommy is awesome and sometimes makes me soy milk fresh from the soy beans! <3
Anyways, I think you’ll like the soy milk!
January 8th, 2009 at 1:48 am
i’m definitely like you and go with the swing of things. i pretty much think of it right on the spot. works for me…at least for now~
your posts are always so entertaining to read =)
January 8th, 2009 at 1:54 am
I am a firm believer in meal planning. I don’t plan every meal to an obsessive degree, but a little forethought makes my student schedule a lot easier. I first choose my protein components for the week (usually around 3: tofu, black beans, and chickpeas, for example). Then, I choose a few recipes that incorporate these items and whatever produce I have on hand. This has worked well for me since it provides both flexibility and a small degree of structure to my eating schedule.
January 8th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Damnit, I hate when the stores put the about to expire milk in the front. I know why they do it, but I’ve thrown away a lot of milk because of it!
I menu plan for the week, picking 5-6 dinners, getting all the fixins and then the morning of, I’ll decide what I feel like that night.
There’s a good article in this month’s Cooking Light about menu planning and shopping on a budget.
January 8th, 2009 at 6:19 am
hey heather!! great tips! i love regular milk, but i wanted to branch out too so i used to drink almond milk and then tried Silk Vanilla (not the light kind) and liked it alot. tastes good in oats and cereal with with a side of a yummy desert. but i am afraid of adding it to coffee in case it curdles like my almond milk did!!!
January 8th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Those are great ideas! I love grocery shopping – you always have to have a plan and shop the sale papers to get the most for your $$.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Hubby works most nights and isn’t very good about eating leftovers in a timely fashion – he goes through phases unfortunately.
I normally plan to make 2-3 dinners each week. I keep a list in my google account of meals I’ve made and browse that, bookmark any blog meals I come across, and browse the cookbooks every few weeks or so. I pick out which meals I want to attempt and buy the ingredients for those. I haven’t really had any repeats since we got married in Oct! Always wanting to try something new…
I usually make a huge pot of soup/stew/chili every 2 weeks. I portion some out for hubby, and the rest into bowls for me to take to work or eat for dinner.
Lunches normally come from my huge pot of soup and leftover dinners. Sometimes I don’t plan very well and have to resort to a veggie burger and some beans or something. Trick to freezing soups so you have room in your freezer – place soup into ziplock gallon bags or what have you and lay flat on a cookie sheet and place flat into a freezer until frozen – voila, then you have flat frozen sheets of soup that take up little to no space!
Since hubby doesn’t normally eat any fruit when he’s at home (sad I know), and the only veggies he eats are with his meal – he doesn’t graze/snack like me…I just plan meals for myself counting on most of the leftovers but will leave him plates of food. If he doesn’t get to it in a timely fashion I move to a freezeable container and freeze it for me!
I also go through my cabinet each week before making my list to see what ingredients we have and brainstorm what I could make that would use up those ingredients.
Hubby is pretty simple. I just make sure he has crackers, cheese, frozen ezikiel bread (for grilled cheese sammiches), personal frozen pizzas, milk & cereal. He is able to eat at least 1 meal free at work daily.
I rambled, sorry.
January 8th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Hey Heather. Sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts…two of my favorite things! I bet they were great with the honey and dijon.
I used to drink soy milk, but sometimes soy bothers my stomach. It’s okay…I don’t like it by itself, but it’s fine in cereal or oatmeal. Now, I drink vanilla almond milk, sometimes I treat myself to vanilla hemp milk. I only buy it ever so often due to the price.
I try to meal plan, and ideally I would like to only grocery shop once a week. However, things change, and I find myself at the store almost every other day for just one or two ingredients. I definitely need to work on that! Thanks for the tips. I always write things down that I need, but then I find myself at the store without my list and end up forgetting one or two things ALWAYS. Silly.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:00 am
SWEET POTATOES!! BRUSSELS SPROUTS!! Two favorites. Holy yum.
Great tips!!
January 8th, 2009 at 10:09 am
I always try to plan my meals ahead of time, just becuase it makes grocery shopping easier. Lately I’ve been really bad at it though, I’ve just been buying whatever looks good.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Heather – Great news, chobanis are 10 for $10 at stop and shop again this week haha..i know i’m a nerd and read the circulars online the day they come out which is thursday..i love knowing whats on sale before i get there.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:21 am
YUM to the recipe – thanks for posting it!
Soy milk: I love it but I usually put it in smoothies or with cereal. I also get flavored kind so I don’t know how the original tastes. Good luck! There’s nothing more annoying than coming home to find the products you bought have expired
I don’t really plan my meals but I do plan the next day to try to use up the leftovers.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:53 am
What a fabulous combination! Can’t wait to try it!!
I always make a meal plan … I plan for the week ahead on Sundays, make my grocery list based off that, then I head to the grocery store. I try to only make one trip to the grocery per week, but sometimes I have to run out to pick up something extra. I have been doing this for about a year now and have found that it has saved us a lot of money. (Plus less stress since I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to make when it comes down to the final minute!!)
Good luck, girl!
January 8th, 2009 at 11:26 am
good girl with the self control at target! such a hard place not to spend $$$$$$$$$$$$$
love the tips!
January 8th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Thanks for the tips!!!! FYI: not sure if someone has written this yet, but you should still use the soymilk in 10ish days after it has been opened. and i love plain light silk.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I usually make a big batch of something for dinner every night on the weekend. I don’t usually get bored (thankfully!) but I always have veggie burders and PB and J on hand it I want to switch it up. I’m a grad student and this saves SO much money and wastes nothing. I also plan to have the same thing every day for lunch. For example, this week was Giada’s linguine w/ green beans and tomatoes for lunch and meatballs and homemade garlic bread for dinner. If you make it super delicious its hard to get bored!
January 8th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I definitely plan my meals for the week before making a grocery list. Well actually I just plan all the dinners and most of them have enough leftovers for lunch. I often build in a day of unplanned dinner, which allows me to use up whatever I have in the fridge and lets my husband get take out of something or eat a frozen meal (I don’t eat those, but he does). And I keep enough yogurt and oats in the house for breakfasts. Hope this helps!
January 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I suck at grocery shopping on a budget, but I did make a similar Brussels sprouts dish last night and it was wonderful. Also, I drink Silk Soymilk Light Plain (ie, not vanilla or chocolate) and I love it.
January 8th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
I’m horrible with budget shopping as well. Right now I don’t need to worry much about it since I go with my parents but that will change soon enough…
January 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I love the light soymilk … but then again, I never really loved regular milk and only use the soy in coffee and mixed into my oatmeal.
Katy
sillytatertot.blogspot.com
January 8th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
brussels AND sweet potatoes…now thats my kind of dindin. YUM! boo on the milk. silk light is good though.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:12 am
We have a menue white board on our fridge and I try and write on it every week whats for dinner, now as far as lunch its leftovers. Hubby dosent eat leftovers, he hates Microwaves, wait but he loves lean pockets somethings not right here! lol
January 9th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I plan a few meals at a time, before store trips. I do better making a couple of small trips to Trader Joes on bike than with trying one big weekly shopping trip and a 7-day meal plan. Allows for shifting meals to suit cravings, and the limit of one reusable bag in my basket and whatever fits in my backpack keeps me from going off-list.
DIY snack packs are a tremendous savings. I have three children to pack lunches for each day, so I see a huge difference, but you’ll see it even with just the his/her snack packs. Mixing and matching nuts, seeds, dried fruit and peanut butter filled pretzels to make your own trail mix is a cinch.
Love the sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts idea. Picked up a bag of fresh sprouts at TJs yesterday, and think I’ll follow your lead, instead of my usual pear, parsnip, onion & red pepper flakes.
January 13th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Added sweet potatoes into my brussels sprouts recipe. It was wonderful! Wouldn’t have occurred to me, if not for your post. THANK YOU!