Giant trip

So far this month we've spent $120 on groceries and $120 on dining out. (Plus $40 on a bar tab at the GLVWG conference, but that's another tale and another category.) When I see that I've stayed that close to the budget, I have a tendency to refuse to go to the store no matter what.

But I only have two sticks of butter.

And I think I could make it until April with two sticks of butter but I was thinking about making those sausage-filled French waffles tomorrow for a friend. French requires butter.

My husband volunteered to go to the store. But my list was geared toward Aldi and he was going to Giant. So, I gave him the list and he said he'd do his best.

He spent $26.38 and got:

• 12 ounces of honey, $2.29
• 13 ounces of Giant coffee and 13 ounces of Giant decaf coffee, $2 each
• 2 1 lb boxes of pasta plus 1 lb box of vermicelli, 89 cents each
• 2 lbs bananas at 59 cents a pound, $1.20
• 2 quarts of strawberries, buy one get one free, for a total of $4.49
• 2 packaged Dole salads, $2.50 each
• Silk soy milk, unsweetened, half gallon, plus one half-gallon silk soy milk, chocolate, $2.99 each plus 55 cents off each because of a coupon
• 1/2 pound butter, $1.19 (butter prices are cheaper at Aldi, Wegmans used to be cheaper but their butter prices just went up. I believe Aldi's is $1.79 a pound and Wegmans is now $1.99)
  

Asparagus

I steamed a pound of asparagus tonight. I forgot to store it in a small glass with an inch of water like they always recommend, but it was prime asparagus so it was salvageable. Heloise-- the syndicated columnist with the helpful household tips-- recommends rinsing the asparagus in cold water, then snapping the wooden ends off, by bending and letting the stalks naturally break wherever they break.

My husband will eat the woody pieces, so it's a waste for me.

I placed the pound of asparagus in the steamer for 15 minutes. Then, I heated a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in my Le Creuset skillet.

Then I placed the steamed asparagus in the skillet, sprinkled liberally with garlic powder, ground about 3/4 teaspoon four-color pepper and added less than 2 teaspoons butter. And sauteed for five minutes.

Great stuff! (Even the little one loved it!)

Wegmans trip

We stopped at Wegmans today because I had some time to kill and we absolutely needed some things... Dryer sheets, deodorant for the hubby, conditioner, greens for the tortoise, pantyhose for the job interview tomorrow... Couldn't do a full order because I had no time to go home and put it in the fridge. The bill came to $36.55 and really I got nothing. But some of it was more "household" than groceries...

So what did I get?

• small can half-caff coffee, $1.99
• Whole wheat organic farfalle noodles, which I only got one box because I didn't think the unemployed woman should be paying that much money for noodles, $1.49
• 80 count dryer sheets, $2.99
• real maple syrup, $6.99 (this same bottle used to cost $4.99)
• A dozen Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, $2.79
• two bottles of conditioner and one bottle of shampoo, 77 cents each
• 3 pairs pantyhose, $2.99, $2.99, and $4.99, obviously I didn't notice the one pair was $2 more
• Mennen Speed Stick deodorant, 2 bottles, 66 cents each
• Bagged salad, French blend, $2.50
• 1.1 pounds fresh asparagus, $1.74
  

Pork Citrus Pasta/ Day's Meal Plan

For breakfast we had oatmeal with fresh blueberries.

For dinner I took the leftover chili with cornbread dumplings out of the freezer since I have class until 4, and a career fair after that.

For breakfast tomorrow, I took sticky buns out of the freezer. We have a bunch of errands to do in the a.m. and thought sticky buns would be fun.

For lunch today, there's not enough pork with vegetables from last night for everyone. So, I took the pork, and cut it into bitsize pieces and took another bag of the steam-in-bag spring vegetables in citrus sauce and made some multigrain rotini and served the whole thing over pasta.

Pork and carrots

Since I had three pounds of cooked carrots... I gathered the following:

• the carrots
• one steam-in-bag of "spring vegetables in citrus sauce" from Aldi. (Carrots, snap peas, asparagus, tiny onions and tiny bits of roasted red pepper)
• the last two one-inch thick boneless porkchops I got from Wegmans probably in December
• butter
• extra virgin olive oil

My husband sliced the pork into stir fry strips. I fried them in about 1.5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. When they were just about done, I added about one tablespoon butter and close to 1 pound of steamed baby carrots. Stirred it all thoroughly.

Then I prepared the steam-in-bag vegetables as the directions stated and poured that on top of the whole mixture. Squeezed out every drop of sauce and stirred it all up until it was hot and thoroughly mixed.

The carrots tasted delicious.

Carrots

I have a 3-lb bag of baby carrots that has been in my fridge for 18 days.

I'm not a fan of baby carrots. I'm even less of a fan of cooked carrots.

But right now, I'm going to put half the bag in the steamer (the directions say 1 lb sliced carrots) and depending how they do, I'll cook the rest that way. I'll save some for dinner (parsleyed carrots? ginger carrots? orange carrots? maple carrots?) and freeze the rest. If I steam them, they should be relatively "stiff" and any loss of texture would probably still be edible. Wish me luck.

Iced tea and leftovers

Last week's green tea with berry turned awesome. This morning I'm making Stash vanilla nut cream decaf with a regular lipton bag, too. I forgot last week that I do have a glass jar to make sun tea. I bought it on clearance last summer at Wegmans.

For breakfast we had scrambled eggs and fresh blueberries.

For lunch we had leftover pasta from the restaurant last night (my dad took us out to dinner). Can you believe I ate pretty heartily last night, and still had enough of my meal leftover to split it three ways for the family for lunch.

That's when you know portion sizes are out of control.