Groceries and such

I have no idea if this entry will interest people - but I'm throwing it out there! 

I am in charge of meal planning and everything food related for 12 people. (Though - I do have help picking menus for dinners!) I'm constantly trying to improve my grocery shopping efficiency - so I thought I'd list a few of my tips and tricks and see if you had any to add!

I do one big trip each week and typically one smaller one (it's a good week if I just do one though!)

I plan menus out a month in advance - 5 dinners a week plus standard fare for breakfast and lunches.(fruit, hot/cold cereal, sandwich and salad stuff, eggs, etc.) The other two dinners are leftovers or just whatever you find to make. :)

I make an effort to put dinners that really need fresh meat closest to the grocery shopping days and schedule dinners that can use frozen or preserved meat near the end of the week.

Examples of "end of the week" dinners - - Jambalaya with smoked sausage,  salmon croquettes made from canned salmon, a crock pot chicken meal, etc.  Things like sloppy joes, tacos, shepherds pie etc can also work with frozen ground meat. (Or frozen browned ground meat if you've been extra industrious!)

 I keep all the menus and recipes in a binder. We print a lot of recipes off the internet. If I got one from a cookbook I make a note of that as well.  When it's time to make the grocery list I can just open one binder.

I keep a Word document with my grocery list that has 5 sections.

Section 1: weekly purchases - - milk, eggs, bread, fresh fruit and veggies, etc.

Section 2: Pantry things - either what is needed for the meals that week or things we've run out of like sugar, flour, condiments, etc.

Section 3: Special requests.  These are the things everyone else adds to the grocery lists - special cereals, cookies, certain types of juice, etc.  No guarantee this list will get purchased. Each week a different person gets to choose one kind of sweet snack, salty snack, cereal, and juice flavor for the whole house to share. So - one week a kid may pick Cheerios - so I buy a ginormous box of Cheerios for the whole house and the next week the Lucky Charms kid gets her wish. It works really well at making sure everyone gets their favorite treat now and then, making sure I'm not spending a lot of money on these items, and that the house isn't overrun with sugary snacks and drinks.

Section 4: Monthly Budget. I keep a running track of how much of the budget I've spent that month and how much I have left.

Section 5: Menus for the upcoming week. I've found it very helpful to have the actual menu with me when shopping - so if I can't find a certain ingredient I know if I can substitute. Or, if the schedule only allows me a quick trip that morning - I know I can just get the bare minimum for meals the next day or so rather than the entire list.

Unless I'm 100% certain that I have a certain item I put it on the grocery list if I need it that week. Then, after the list is printed I do a quick "shopping trip" in my pantry and cross out things or adjust the quantity as necessary. I used to run back and forth to the pantry while writing my list. This got old. Fast.

On the actual day of shopping I hit three stores. The first is the store in my area that has the best produce for the best value. Next is the big bulk discount store. There isn't a lot that I buy there - but there are a few things that actually are a better deal.  I try to keep this store to every other week - but sometimes that doesn't work.  And, lastly I go to the regular store to get everything else. Typically from start to finish (including unloading and putting away the groceries) it takes me about 3 hours.


The smaller trip later in the week happens if an end-of-the-week meal really needs fresh meat or if the store was out of something on the first trip or if my brain wasn't working on the first trip. I try to avoid going to the store twice in a week though.


A goal that I have that I haven't quite taken the time to implement yet is to keep a log of the cost of food that I buy often - things that are in "Section 1" I tend to know the cost of just because I buy it so much - but the Section 2 and 3 items I don't always know off the top of my head. If I can start tracking the typical price per oz/item cost of these things and when sales typically occur - then I'll better be able to map out the weekly grocery budget when doing meal planning. Also, I occasionally have to go to the pricier grocery store to get items - they also have sales on occasion which I typically ignore - but if I know the normal cost at the cheap store I'll know it it's a deal or not to get it at the pricier store.  I don't get much into couponing unless it's a grocery store "$5 off $30" coupon or something.  Most of the time - even with the coupon - buying that item in bulk is not cheaper than buying the store brand as the coupon is usually only good for 1-3 of the items and I typically buy everything times 4 or 5 and I don't have time to hunt down multiple copies of coupons. Maybe I'll eventually get there - but no interest at the moment. :)

Bookshelf

I've been trying to get my guest room in a bit more order and part of that was re-organizing my bookshelf. I've always been a bit confused as to how to order my books. Genre by author? Completely by last name? Do books without authors go under the title? Do they get mixed into the authors or do they go in their own section? I finally found a solution! Sort them by color! I thought it was fool proof. Little did I expect to be sitting in the middle of a pile of books asking myself, "Is that a pale green or blue? Or....purple? hmm..."

Anyway. Here is what I came up with:

And then I realized I forgot about a number of books. So, it looks like this.

I totally used books as shelves up there at the top.

And here are a few close-up shots of some of the "colors." (If you're a "book person" I think you can click on these to make them bigger. You book people can tell me which books you love/hate, ask me questions about books, whatever. Have at it!)


Oranges and reds.

I like this shot. The aesthetics of the two colors next to each other appeals to me as does the small amount of diversity of the titles.

Seemed appropriate for the top of a color-coded bookshelf. And I love the little vase.

The yellow section is so much brighter in person.

The Kitchen Junk Drawer. Or, I Forgot I Had A Garlic Press!

I picked up Green Housekeeping by Ellen Sandbeck at the bookstore the other day. I've been reading/skimming through it. I appreciate her thrifty approach to being green. It's less Martha Stewart and more "I'm busy but I still want my home neat and clean without using chemicals!"

The first part of the book is on organization and she suggested using cardboard from old food boxes (cereal, crackers, etc) to create your own custom drawer organizers. Recycling AND organization that doesn't cost me more than the cost of the tape I already have. I'm in.

So, I present to you my newly reclaimed kitchen drawer. The things I use the most I put up front. I rediscovered that I own such things as a garlic press, a biscuit cutter, and a cheese slicer. What treasures! And, now I don't have to go digging around the entire drawer for my 1/8 tsp measuring spoon - I just have to dig around the first little cubby hole on the right! Amazing. Really.

Materials

Before

After

The beaters for the electric mixer have always been a problem in this drawer as if they do not have their own "floor" space they do not fit - they can't be on top of anything else. I used to just shove stuff around until I got some empty space. Hopefully this will work better. I've got the little "grease catcher" for the George Foreman Grill on top of some corn on the cob holders (which will come in handy when I once again get my corn and worms this Wednesday *shudder*). I was looking for those corn things last week and couldn't find them in the drawer! Stuff that I rarely use (cake decorating supplies, the turkey baster) are way in the back.

Now go see what stuff you can take out of boxes in your cabinets so you can organize your junk drawer too! ,

Favorite Things: Jewelry as Decor

I have never been a big fan of jewelry boxes. They just don't seem to serve their purpose very well for anything other than rings and perhaps bracelets. Necklaces get tangled on the hooks. Earrings get lost and jumbled around. Plus, there never seems to be enough space - especially when bulky and large jewelry is the rage. A few years ago I started hanging my necklaces on an old accordion-style hat rack I picked up at a yard sale for 25 cents. I've hung the hat rack both vertically and horizontally (as it is now) - and it works great both ways. I really need another one as my necklaces are getting a bit crowded - but it works for now. This is in my closet so the only person who really sees it is me and the guest who goes snooping where they ought not to be.

I've been keep my earrings in a small clear case designed to store eyelets for the scrapbook enthusiast. This has worked well except for my larger earrings - and I was running out of space in the box as well. Taking a cue from my necklace rack I decided to make use of some blank wall space next to my bathroom mirror and put in some nails in a lattice pattern on the wall and hung my earrings from there. I just had six nails at first - but I liked it so much I wanted to turn some of my other pretty earrings into artwork and just kept going.

In general, I like how it turned out. I'm considering finding some simple fabric that coordinates with my bathroom and putting that on the wall behind the earrings and framing it all out with some simple molding from the hardware store - just to set off the display - but that may be a bit much for the space. I'll mull it over and if I give it a re-design I'll be sure to post pictures.


Those are headbands on a towel bar as well. i went through a headband phase for about a month before I stopped wearing them - - but I liked the headband there so they've stayed.

Anybody else have interesting jewelry and/or accessory storage ideas? Hats? Purses? Scarves? Pins? Do share!

Favorite Things: containers

When I first moved to my little apartment I found some magnetic spice tins at Ross and I fell in love with them. I could not find the same tins anywhere though to increase my collection! I looked thoroughly through the kitchen section of every Ross I entered and only managed to find three more - giving me a total of 9 spice jars. Well, this past weekend my mother and I were at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and she spotted my spice tins! They typically come in a set of 9-12 with a little magnetic board - - but I don't use the magnetic board. However, BB&B was selling them individually! So happy. I bought all but five of them.

The original set I bought at Ross had some labels - and I found a few more removable labels at World Market.


Aren't they just lovely? This is perhaps my most favorite thing in my kitchen. I love that they easily stay organized and in reach. I even have seven extras at the moment for when I buy more spices.


These lovely little things do not have to be used for spices of course. I'm considering using them in my office to store some craft things like beads, eyelets, buttons, etc. They're also great for office supplies (push pins, paper clips, rubber bands)


And, I know I'm a couple of weeks behind on my CSA postings. I must admit I'm a bit disappointed in the fact that it's almost always types of leafy greens. I like salad - - it's just not a very fun blog topic. Hopefully I'll be getting some other types of vegetables and fruits soon and I'll have more to write about besides "had salad again. . ." Or, when I'm finally done with work for the school year I'll have a chance to try some fancy salads.