The Detergent Debate

I'm not exactly a fan of Wal*Mart and its business practices, nor have I set foot in a Wal*Mart store in years. But I do have a Sam's Club me membership, which makes me a hypocrite. I admit that upfront.

For a long time, Sam's Club offered the convenience of BIG containers of cat litter (nice in a two-cat house) and dishwasher and laundry detergent and peanut butter, all consumed in mass quantities when you have a small child. Oh! and tissues!

I am considering dropping my membership because I ethically don't like the company and more and more the "good deals" I used to see are available now not only at Sam's but also at Wegmans, Target and other stores which are trying to compete.

I always knew some items at Sam's weren't cheap, and some, because of their bulk, would rot before my family would use them. Now, since I work at Target, I am forced to see more merchandise and what it costs. I have always been aware of what I spend for stuff, but never before have I had an opportunity to study the shelves for basic household items at a Target.

Last week, I bought dishwasher soap at Target. Yesterday, my husband bought more at Sam's Club.

I'm fairly certain inlaid $2.48 for 75 ounces of Up and Up dishwasher soap. My husband paid $7.98 for two 96-ounce bottles.

That's 4.15 cents an ounce at Sam's and 3.3 cents at Target. That's not include the membership fee at Sam's or deducting my employee or red card discounts from Target.

'Standard' school lunch

Yesterday, my husband went to the store to get the contents of a surprise lunch-- school lunch for me and picnic for him and the daughter.

For $13, he got buy one get one free bagged salads, cream of wheat, smoked turkey breast from the deli counter and honestly I don't know if he purchased anything else. Oh! Gala apples and bananas.

But I do know he made smoked gouda and turkey wraps with greens and garden fresh tomatoes that make my mouth water even now.

For dinner, he made strawberry pancakes to use up the last of the strawberries we bought at the warehouse club last week. With a side of morningstar breakfast patties and real maple syrup.

For the little one's lunch today, I decided to go basic. Or my take on basic. Thermos with vanilla soy milk. Sides include a small bag of cool ranch doritoes, a Gala apple, a bag of 'fruit snacks' (a birthday gift), and one Hershey kiss. The sandwich is a small one, about the equivalent of half a standard sandwich. It's my homemade English muffin bread with mayo, turkey, vermont cheddar, spinach (carefully picked out of the bagged salad of mixed greens) and a thin slice of garden fresh tomato.

Salad with chicken strips

I intentionally flipped meals today-- I knew it was going to get hot and that I was probably going to burn out before the end of the day.

So I made the mac and cheese for lunch, before the house got hot, and planned salad with chicken for dinner.

Iceberg lettuce and romaine mix with cabbage and shredded carrots from the warehouse club, mixed with spring mix from Aldi. Used organic ranch dressing, the Nature's Promise Giant brand.

And I poured Frank's red hot buffalo sauce in with my ranch dressing to give it a kick.

Now the chicken. Boneless, skinless tenders from the freezer. Cooked slowly in butter with a pinch of four color organic pepper and fresh ground garlic salt.

Salads on a budget

So, it's been a great food day here.

Breakfast was cream of wheat made with organic 2% milk and fresh sliced strawberries.

Then, an hour long bike ride.

Lunch was a feast of our favorites... gourmet salads and biscuit sandwiches.
My husband was lamenting that my vegetarian sausage (Morningstar breakfast patties) multigrain biscuits sounded yummy. So I made the last two sausages for him and my daughter and fried an egg for myself.

Then I prepped salads:

All salads received romaine lettuce (from the warehouse club), asiago (from Aldi), stilton with amaretto and dried fruits (my inlaws bought it at the warehouse club and couldn't figure out what to do with it), and cheddar. My daughter and I added raisins. My daughter picked Wegmans organic Caesar salad dressing, and I went with the sesame ginger vinaigrette (also from Wegmans) and then for my salad, the clincher, I added hot wasabi bar mix. Fabulous stuff!

I call this salad on a budget because I literally rooted around my cupboards and threw whatever I found in. If you've read a few entries in this blog, you'll already know that I rarely go to the store if it wasn't my plan. I substitute whatever I can, wherever I can.

I may include one of my oatmeal fruit cookies for dessert.

Shopping...

Breakfast was shredded wheat and my oatmeal cookies...

Lunch was leftover eggplant parm my husband made Sunday, piled onto sandwiches.

Dinner was the leftover nachos from Mex Tex the other night. Can you believe we also had our leftover meals last night?

Tonight, we went to the warehouse club. Didn't want to, because my husband doesn't get paid until next week and I was really hoping to make it to May without shopping.

I spent $92, which brings my grocery budget for the month to $213 plus the $60 I spent taking the little one to dinner for her good grades.

I bought:
- 12 boxes of Kleenex, $12.98
- The big pump of Coffeemate French Vanilla Creamer, $9.88
- 20 pounds of unbleached white flour, $6.38
- Tall kitchen trash bags, $9.26
- 10 cans of tuna in water, $6.57
- Organic 2 percent milk, 2 half gallons, $3.12 each
- one pineapple, $2.92
- 4 pounds of butter quarters, $7.22
- 2 lbs extra sharp cheddar cheese, $5.32
- A quart (I think) of strawberries, $3.98
- 2 pounds of romaine lettuce, $3.17 (for me and the tortoise)
- 18 large Egglands Best eggs, $2.93
- 14 bars of Dove plus a bottle of body wash, $12.70

The end of a fun weekend

My apologies for not keeping up with this blog over the weekend, but our diet has been mediocre because the daughter and I had a little bug. Nothing serious. Nothing gastro-intestinal, thank goodness, but enough to keep my daughter up at night with a cough and enough to make me sound like Marge Simpson's sister, Selma Beauvoir.

I'm enjoying a cup of Easy Now Traditional Medicinal tea because the French professor at Lafayette emailed me about the papers I asked him to read. He says my French is excellent but I'm sure he's being polite.

To keep this vaguely on topic, I'll mention that we had lunch with our German friends today and were treated to an apple walnut salad, krautwickel and garlic mashed potatoes which our daughter loved.

On Saturday, before I fell ill, we made a romantic trip to the pizza parlor and the warehouse club. I was going to report the items on the receipt, but most seem pet or school related.

• Cat litter, 35 lbs, $10.83
• 36 double rolls of toilet tissue, $14.98
• Cascade Gel, $8.79
• HUGE container of Dawn dish detergent, plus a small one (I have to be careful with dish soaps, I'm allergic to some) $4.98
• Post It Note Flags (306) $6.57
• Two giant jars of JIF creamy $7.79
• My favorite "MM Bonus Bag" now before you think it's chocolate candy, that's 22.5 pounds of Meow Mix cat food, $12.78
  

Sausage and rice

A very simple dinner tonight... We heated up some leftover white rice with spinach, mixed in some chicken sausage, the last of the stuff from the warehouse club with the asiago and spinach, cut into tiny pieces. And some imported French butter. C'est tout.

Eggplant Parmesan

I unexpectedly worked late tonight, so I briefed the husband on how to make eggplant parmesan with some frozen eggplant cutlets we bought at the warehouse club. For lunch today, I made my daughter a scrambled egg with the last of the blueberry bread pudding. And leftover broccoli sicilian for breakfast. Yes, we splurged and got a sicilian last night.

So, the eggplant cutlet come breaded. My husband added layers of sauce, garlic pepper, Italian seasoning, grated parmesan and shredded cheddar, with some diced broccoli for good measure. It's yummy.

Sausage and egg noodles

So, I think my husband may be learning some new tricks thanks to our food experiments during the last year.

I worked late, so he cooked up a lovely dinner of, well, I'll write it as if it were on a menu.

Spinach-asiago chicken sausage and egg noodles with bite-sized broccoli and black beans in an olive oil sauce.

I don't taste any spices, no garlic or black pepper, but man, it's tasty.

Blueberry Crumb Bread Pudding

My daughter seems to have the plague we've all been harboring, so I gave her some trail mix with extra cashews and dark chocolate powder-coated almonds to tide her until I got something hot and comforting whipped up.

This is what I thought I'd make, the apple crisp bread pudding, but with blueberries as we have a big bag of frozen blueberries from the warehouse club. Here is the original recipe:

http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/11/apple-crisp-bread-pudding.html

But, as one should anticipate, I have a tendency not to read the entire recipe before cooking... I ended up improvising more than I thought and what should have been a nice 11 x 13 pan of pudding ended up filling a cake pan.

So, here goes:

In a large skillet, combine

• 3 cups blueberries
• 1/4 cup blue curacao
• 3 tablespoons butter

Let come to slow boil and reduce heat.

Now, I used a good 14 cups of bread chunks, because I started with a two-day old baguette from Wegmans, ran out, and used the remaining breadchunks I had in the freezer... the same ones I used for my homemade stuffing.

I buttered the bottom of my cake pan and sprinkled with about 1 tablespoon sugar. Then I added the bread hunks from the baguette. I poured most the blueberry mixture over this and spread it around as best I could.

Then I added the frozen bread to cover it and sprinkled about 1 cup of frozen blueberries on top.

Now, the custard:

My custard was...

• 7 eggs (it was what I had)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup 2 percent milk
• almost 2 cups vanilla soy milk

Whisk until a nice even texture. Pour onto bread, pressing down with a spoon to make sure the bread absorbs the liquid.

Now, the oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. I layered a thin layer of brown sugar on top and then added about a cup of my mother-in-law's pie crumbs on the very top. She always makes extra when she makes a pie and usually throws them away, but I freeze them.

Bake for 40 minutes or until set.

I hope it works...

We had the first serving after 40 minutes in the oven and it was incredible! I put it back it for another 15 minutes because it didn't seem quite set enough...

More of an update:
Now what? I have made a ridiculous amount of bread pudding. This is where 'cheap' comes in. We each had about 1.5 cups for breakfast. It accounted for about 1/6 of this pan. I scooped an equal amount into a Tupperware container for tomorrow's breakfast.

There are several approaches for the rest...

1. Eat until we are disgustingly full. (Wouldn't be cheap or healthy.)
   
2. Share. (No one really to share with)
3. Store.

I opted to freeze. Bread pudding is already mushy, so it shouldn't affect the texture too negatively to freeze it. And I placed approximately three servings in each one quart freezer bag. So each bag will serve my whole family for breakfast. I ended up with four bags, which I will place inside a large freezer bag once the little ones cool. I have them in my unheated mud room so it shouldn't take long.

Now, a dessert that required a lot of eggs, bread and blueberries will serve a family of three for six comfort food breakfasts. Serve with a side of vegetarian sausage and I think that's a great start for a winter day.

Shopping and excuses...

So, I haven't prepared a decent meal since Tuesday because I started fighting a sinus infection on Wednesday. And then last night we spent $24 on dinner for the three of us dining out at Shruty's. A taco pizza, because it has lots of lettuce and tomato to count as vegetable.

My daughter has requested mac and cheese and in the interest of time, Dad is making his variety with frozen peas. He makes a cheese sauce with some cheese, butter, and some milk that's about to go sour and mixes it up in the pot. It comes out nice, but not quite as thick and comforting as baked mac and cheese, but it's technically healthier because he uses about 1/3 of the cheese I would use.

He also ran to the warehouse club because the little one's ear doctor said they had a generic of her medication (they didn't) and after everyone in the house having some sort of ailment this week, we had no tissues. So he bought ten boxes of Kleenex and six boxes of Puffs Plus. (And we bought 10 boxes last month, gone already.)

He also bought a HUGE carton of microwave popcorn for our "movie nights." And more of those Special K breakfast bars that I keep in my purse for food emergencies. And half and half, and cheddar cheese.

Note: Gruyere is $12 a pound there. I have to investigate what the per pound price is at Wegmans and Giant.

Odd little lunch

My husband has his holiday luncheon today at work. So I prepared for my daughter:

Some italian blend mixed vegetables (zucchini, carrots, lima beans and broccoli) and a Boca vegan burger we got at the warehouse club. I heated the burger, added shredded cheddar cheese, swirls of ketchup and ranch dressing, and she loves it (even though we don't have a bun of any kind). Served with chocolate soymilk.

Penne Regate with Chicken sausage

We tried the chicken sausage with spinach and asiago in penne regate with red sauce and grated cheese tonight. It was good. Better than I expected. I purchased the sausage at the warehouse club because it sounded different and had a nice vitamin A content that made it a nice "vegetable" addition...

Shopping

Ah, the lovely snowing weather... We load the family into the car and head to the gas station and the warehouse club. This is my first trip to any store since my husband's trip before Thanksgiving... So... We spent $172. What'd we get?

• 1 pound organic spring mix (primarily for the tortoise) $3.98
  
• The Never Ending Story on DVD, $4.86
• Adam & Eve 100 % juice 6.75 ounce juice boxes, 36 boxes (for school), $8.20
• Spinach & Asiago Chicken sausage 3 lbs for $11.97 (selected because of the vitamin A content. The addition of spinach gives it some green vegetable presence)
  
• Cat litter, 35 lbs for $10.74
• Hunts Tomato sauce, 12 15-ounce cans, $6.98 (not convinced the generic wouldn't be cheaper, but for convenience...)
• Land O Lakes cocoa, 42 packages of seven different flavors, $11.28 (That should last the winter)
• Six pounds of baking soda, $6.16 (for cleaning)
• 1 gallon vinegar, $2.48 (again, think I could find it cheaper elsewhere, but I never remember to look... so... for cleaning)
• The HUGE pump of French Vanilla coffeemate, the equivalent of 3oo of those single serving tubs, $9.88
• Six pounds of penne rigate $4.88
• 4 lbs of frozen cheese ravioli, $8.87 (the school wanted more than $9 for 3 lbs as part of their 'Market Day' fundraiser
• 3 lbs of frozen blueberries, $5.68
• 16 big old vegan Boca Burgers, $9.86
• American brie, $5.46, for my husband's Christmas party at the office
• 2 bricks, 2 pounds each, of Land of Lands extra sharp cheddar cheese, $5.56 each
• Eggplant cutlets, breaded but unseasoned, 3 lbs
• Cascade dishwasher liquid, 10 lbs, $8.94
• 10 boxes of Kleenex, $12.98 (in this house, we need tissues by the case)
• 36 double rolls of Quilted Northern, 286 sheets a roll, $16.88 (Now, the Member's Mark generic brand was only $14.88, but there was only 200 sheets on each of their rolls) The Northern had 10,296 sheets. The Member's Mark only 7,200. That's 41 cents a roll versus 46 cents a roll, with an extra 86 sheets on the more expensive roll. That's almost 1/3 more toilet paper for a nickel!
  

Weekend summary

So, right now I'm drinking a very sweet cup of dessert tea because my daughter convinced me to have a honey-rock candy thing in mine...

Yesterday we took it mellow on the food. My husband went to the warehouse club for pet supplies and came home with tuna, Cool Ranch Doritoes and Brie for us. He toasted some tortilla shells in the skillet and made tuna wraps with melted cheese for lunch.

For dinner, he also swept in and made pasta with an olive oil/butter sauce, grated romano cheese and the last of the fresh broccoli that was starting to look a tad flimsy. It was yummy.

Not much gourmet this weekend, but we have full bellies.

A trip to the warehouse club

Thus far in August, we have spent about $100 on groceries and $200 on eating out. That's surprised me. I expected both figures to be higher.

The Mexican dinner the other night did indeed yield breakfast. Plus, we got three servings of nachos out of those leftovers.

Last night, my husband and I went to the warehouse club on the way to the movies (and we ended up with enough free samples to qualify as dinner). We spent $142 on non-perishable items. I find that many of the warehouse club items aren't actually cheaper, but I like having items like soap in bulk.

• 21.5 pounds of Meow Mix, $12.32
• 35 pounds of clumping cat litter, $10.74 (cat litter is my primary reason for having a membership. Having a membership is against my principles of how I normally shop. It's too close to Wal*Mart for business practices)
  
• 10 cans of chunk white tuna packed in water, $6.57
• Glad 13 gallon garbage bags, $11.97 (I don't remember how many are in the bag, but they last us more than six months and my husband likes them)
• Special K meal replacement bars, $11.86 (I believe there are 16 in the box. They were the cheapest of all the "bars" and has less than 200 calories each and 10 grams of protein. I start school Monday, as does my daughter, and I haven't quite figured out how to get a healthy lunch into myself. So these will be emergency rations in my purse)
• The 300-use pump of French vanilla creamer, $9.88 (lasts about a month, the little jar is $2-$3 at the store and lasts about four days)
• The four-pack box of Ritz crackers, $5.97 (as long as I have peanut butter and Ritz, we have a quick lunch-on-the-go)
• the mega bottle of Cascade dishwasher liquid, $8.94
• Dove, I believe it was 20 bars, $12.88 (this will also last us months)
• Dial, 20 pack of soap, $7.69 (for hand washing, liquid soap is too expensive and the kid uses way to much. A bar of soap makes a mess by the sink, but the cost savings is worth it)
• JIF creamy peanut butter, 2 big jars, $7.69
• A huge container of Emerald dark chocolate cocoa-roasted almonds, $9.63 (These were a risk, but the taste FANTASTIC. As in, eat-the-whole-container delicious. They are unsalted, have lots of protein, Vitamin E and other nutritional yumminess. Plus they're almonds and dark chocolate, two of my favorite things)
• 4 pack of Degree men's anti-perspirant, $7.38 (this is the only brand that works for my husband. He's stinky. And $2 in the store is a bargain. So this was also a great find)
• toilet paper, 36 premium double rolls, $14.98 (it's not my favorite. I like cottonelle but 36 rolls should hold us for a while)
  

July Groceries

It looks like we're having a fruit platter with yogurt and yesterday's trail mix/granola for dinner... I went to FOUR different places to round up food for the family.

I had $94 cash. I would have preferred to only spend that. I'm planning homemade coffee cakes, brioche, brie, fruit, farm fresh bacon and creamsicle smoothies for my breakfast meeting tomorrow.

That means when I finish typing this, I need to get the bacon out of the freezer and start the brioche.

First stop, Klein Farm
Total spent: $19

• 1 pound local cherries
• 1 half-gallon raw milk
• 2 dozen eggs
• 1 bottle chocolate yogurt smoothie
• one container lemon yogurt
• one container plain yogurt

Yes, that's the expensive part of the outing. But it's so fresh. Isn't that the whole point of eating?

I ran that stuff home.
Second stop, Aldi, total spent: $16.61

• flour tortillas (99 cents)
  
• 4 tiny cans tomato sauce ($1 total)
• 1 can large pitted black olives (99 cents) (I've taken to buying these and slicing them myself instead of the tiny cans of pre-sliced)
• 2 cans of diced potatoes (59 cents each, for my breakfast, herbs from the garden will transform them into something magical)
• 11 ounces salt and vinegar potato chips ($1.29) (I prefer the jalapeno cheddar kettle chips but they were $1.99 for 9 ounces)
• 40 quart freezer bags ($1.99)
• 10 two-gallon freezer bags ($1.29) (oops. meant to buy one gallon)
• 34.5 ounces coffee ($4.99) (The whole reason I went, I like Aldi/Beaumont coffee)
• Chopped pecans ($2.69) (for coffee cake in the morning)

Third stop, Wegmans
Total Spent: $21.41

• 5 lbs unbleached white flour ($1.59) (Wegmans is the only store I've seen that carries unbleached flour in a generic brand)
  
• 12 1-liter bottles plain seltzer ($5.99) (for creamsicle smoothies and juice with bubbles)
  
• Morningstar (vegetarian sausage) breakfast patties ($3.49)
• Beef top round cutlet (3.50- $1 coupon)
• pint of blueberries ($1.50)
• Ranch yogurt dressing ($2.99- $1 coupon)
• one seedless watermelon ($3.99)

And finally, Sam's Club
Total spent: $64.22

• 10 boxes Kleenex ($12.88)
• huge bottle Cascade ($8.86)
• 6 boxes puffs plus ($9.52) (kid has been suffering from serious allergies)
• huge box tampax ($11.86)
• 1 pound American double cream brie ($6.46)
• Bottle of French vanilla creamer (= 300 little tubs) ($9.88)
• fresh pineapple ($2.88)
  

Chicken Salad à la Oua Oua

That lame title is my idea of a joke. I'm trying to make chicken salad sound fancy by making it French. Chicken Salad à la Oua Oua. Otherwise known as Wawa. I think I've mentioned before that I like Wawa. 

For a convenience store, they have a good variety of real food. When we vacationed in Cape May, we survived on Wawa... Our daughter was 2 and she didn't need a $10 kids meal like what we found in many of the restaurants. So we bought lots of fruit and chicken salad at Wawa.

That may even be how we discovered the chicken salad at Wawa. I like a good chicken salad. My high school English teacher makes incredible chicken salad with grapes. Then I tried the chicken-apple-walnut salad at the coffee shop by my office. Also great. When my husband came home with the American croissants from the warehouse club, it made me hungry for chicken salad. Except I've never made chicken salad and I don't have chicken.

Since the family had salad for lunch, and homemade blueberry muffins for breakfast, and peaches for snack, I had chicken salad and (GASP) potato chips (Herrs Salt and Pepper Kettle Chips) for dinner.

Tomorrow my mother-in-law is prepping chicken and dumplings for me to make for my dad. Oh, and I made bread today, but it... well... was impotent. I left it rise while I went to class, and the dough was gorgeous when I got back. But when I formed the baguettes and left them for the final rise... They didn't expand. I can only guess I had left them rise too long during class. Then two of the three stuck to the pan. So I have three short, stubby loaves... 

Cheese Platter

I wanted to take some chicken with fruit out of the freezer for dinner, especially since a small crisis came up at work destroying my plans to swing by the grocery store. But my daughter wanted to go to the store anyway... I was hungry and tired, but my husband agreed to go... He said he's have no idea what to purchase. I suggested a cheese platter. He wanted to go out to Wegmans. I suggested if he planned on going that far that he go to the warehouse club as I've wanted to try their brie. It's French, only double cream, but worth a shot.

He got a massive container of blueberries, what appears to be 5 lbs of apples, a tray of the airy Americanized croissants (nice try on his behalf, but sure ain't the real thing), the brie, tuna, organic spring mix for the tortoise, the bog old block of cheddar... for $40. Then he stopped at the liquor store and bought TWO bottles of Vouvray. $25.

He prepared the cheese platter and set the table with peanut butter and various mustards as well...

The chocolate milk dilemma

The total grocery expense so far for December is $66.67, thanks to the trip to the warehouse club we just made. My daughter ate her way through the samples, as usual. We went primarily for dishwasher liquid ($8.86 for almost ten pounds of liquid Cascade, 155 oz.) We also needed cat food. We have two cats, so we get cat food and litter there. The Meow Mix (21.6 lbs) cost $10.74, which I'm including that in the grocery figures event though I would normally put that in the budget as "pets." We bought the "60 count" box of Nut Lovers Nature Valley granola bars for $8.10. I use the quotations because the granola bars have two bars in each wrapper, but it's still one serving size. This works to my benefit around the house, because my daughter and I often split a pack when we're hungry a little too close to meal time. We also bought a quart of half-n-half ($1.46) and Stonyfield Farms Organic 2% milk (half gallon, $3.12). Then we bought a pack of bananas (3 lbs/$1.32) and a whole pineapple ($2.88).

Remember my earlier brie-related tangent? Well, at the store they had several varieties of real French brie between $6 and $11. The $6 hunk was about twice the size of what I'd normally pay $6 for (when splurging on brie). The $11 package got you an entire wheel of brie. I did not buy any, but I made a mental note.

I was also shocked to see that tuna (StarKist solid white, packed in water) had increased in price to about 80 cents a can. I passed. I think I can get it cheaper elsewhere.

The final and biggest dilemma came with a red box of Horizon Organic Chocolate Milk juice boxes. No refrigeration required (which scares me, what do they do to it to make it nonperishable?). 18-8 oz. servings for $10.58. That's 59 cents each serving. Or seven cents an oz. Now, in the store, I couldn't do this math in my head. But I did know that the milk in my cart cost $3.12, and that the chocolate soy milk I normally buy costs between $2.75 and $3.70 depending where I buy it. Somehow in the store, in seemed like a close call about whether it was a good deal or not. Now, of course, with a calculator, I know that the chocolate soy milk, using $3.25 as an average cost for a half gallon, costs a nickel an ounce or 40 cents per serving. If I got the half gallons instead of the individual cartons, I would have saved about $3.50, or the cost of another half gallon. So, it wasn't a horrendous miscalculation. And considering my daughter probably wastes that many ounces on a regular basis when I misjudge how much I pour and give her too much... Maybe I will break even. It's hard to tell.

We paid for everything with the credit card. And for the record, 99.9 percent of the time, I pay the bill in full every month. This month is no exception.