Buy Whole Pieces of Meat

A great way to save money is to buy your meat in whole pieces.  We went to Costco and bought a 12kg inside round roast or slab thing....not sure the proper name.  It was $72 dollars and I was able to cut it into 12 roasts ranging from 1.5 - 4 lbs. 

At first I was a bit scared of cutting my own roasts but the price difference was astronomical.  For a 2-3 kg package it was $30!

So thanks to www.youtube.com I was able to cut some nice roasts, they would have looked even nicer if I had some butcher's twine.

Now you may ask what am I going to do with 12 roasts?  Well this is where the big cook comes in.  My friend Laura and I planned out meals that can be prepared and frozen a head of time.  We made 28 meals in total, 3 whole chicken recipes, pork chops, chicken breasts and the beef roasts and a ginormous amount of borscht!

We just finished cook so I will post later the break down on the costs.

October's Challenge - Big Cook and Menu Planning

I have decided to work with a cash grocery budget.  I find that it is so easy to go over budget on food when you are constantly popping into the store for this and that.  This is the second month that I have used cash and there have been some growing pains. 

My goal this month is to be under budget. 

To accomplish this I have done a big costco shop on mainly meat and I will be doing a big cook tomorrow.  My friend and I are getting together to cook 16-20 meals. 

I am also going to make a menu plan each week.  I am hoping that with all the meat and pre-cooked meals that I can make my weekly budget be $50 or less a week.  I think this is more than do-able, especially when my grocery budget has to allow for diaper purchases.

What do you do to keep grocery costs down?

13

Getting close to my goal wasn't that hard after all.  I cleaned my fridge out this weekend and got rid of all the out of date items, containers with barely any left and even though it is wasteful items that I will never eat...like calorie free peanut butter.

Yes such a thing exists.  I am a bit of snob when it comes to peanut butter, I only like the highly processed, highly sugared kraft smooth peanut butter.  But seriously calorie free peanut butter is disgusting and I was terrified to even look at the label because....what could it be made of?

My challenge now is to use of 3 bottles of lime juice....

How are you doing with de-cluttering your fridge?

67!

I can not believe it! There are 67 different kinds of condiments in my fridge. I included everything from jams, to curry paste and lime juice in my count. I have about 5 different kinds of salad dressing, 3 bottles of lime juice, 2 kinds of curry paste, and so much more. My goal of using up 25% seems really daunting. That means I need to use up about 17 containers. Hmmm... Well, this week I have already planned to BBQ steak and make a lentil curry. Wish me luck!

Challenge #1 - Condiments

If you are like me and you open your fridge and can't put anything new in because of all the containers of condiments.  Then join me on getting rid of all the jars that you barely use.  I am not saying, "Go and get a garbage bag and toss it all." 

Not even close. 

Let's use it up.  This month the challenge is to use up 25% of the condiments in your fridge.

Go to your fridge and count all the condiments.  Everything from the ketchup to the salad dressing.  And post in the comments how many you have.

Too Much

My goodness, it has been way to long since I have blogged.  Don't worry I am still cooking and my kids are getting feed.  I am not cooking anything fancy and nothing blog worthy.

With the start of September, thoughts of Christmas have come with it.  Between now and Christmas our family has two birthdays.  My kids are well loved and our play room is exploding.  Mike and I have gotten a touch of Too-Much-Stuffitis.  And this has extended to my kitchen.

Have you ever opened your cupboard, have so much stuff something fall out because it is so full but still have no idea what to cook for dinner?
That is my cupboards.  My challenge for September is to not buy anything except fresh vegetables and meat.

I challenge everyone to join me and post in the comment section what you cook.

Greek Celebration Bread Part 2

I made it just in time for Easter.  I didn't think it would happen because Mike was away last week and solo-parenting and bread making were not a match last week for me.  Thankfully my wonderful mother in law took my girls for a sleep over.  So I made the Christmas (the round one) and the Easter version of the Greek Celebration bread.  Delicious!  The bits of fruit and nuts made the bread so much better.