Costco?

Today I went on my first trip to Costco, with my sister who has a membership. I don't know what to think about the place. I was overwhelmed by the large-ness of everything, and trying to calculate what items were actually a good deal in their oversized portions. I bought a few things that totaled to a significant portion of our $52 weekly limit, but these things will last much longer than a week:

-Large jar of all natural almond butter: $6.39

-5 lb. bag of frozen corn: $4.99

-2 loaves of multi-grain bread: $4.59

-Huge jar of all natural salsa: $4.99

I would never get a membership, because we don't eat a lot of the bulk frozen meats and pre-packaged dinners they sell, much less have room for them in our freezer, and the produce is sold in quantities too large for us to eat before it would go bad. I can see how it might be a good deal for large families....but....there is something that feels wrong to me about a place like that.

Maybe it's just because I associate Costco with Sam's club, which I'm pretty sure is owned by Wal-Mart, which I wouldn't want to give my money to. I haven't done any research on the company so I can't say anything for sure. All I know is I felt lost in there and longed for my little co-op with handmade signs where no one checks your receipt at the door.

Does anyone have any info or opinions on whether this place is good or bad?

On the upside, I bought a tomato plant! It was $12 and I have no idea if this was a good deal because I'm clueless when it comes to plants and growing things, even though I wish I had a huge garden, but it was worth it for me because now I don't have to go searching for one. We're keeping it inside tonight because it's supposed to get below 40 degrees. Here it is, Peeko de Guy-O (named by Nathan with 2 glasses of organic Riesling in him!)

-Kelly

Weekly Spending Recap

Our total this week was $49.32 - not far under our cap of $52. This scares me because we already had some food to start with, we ate out one night, and also picked up some special snacks for Nathan's b-day on Sun. not included in the total. (We were going to see a movie, but when the auto-pay total came to $20 we just couldn't do it, so we rented from RedBox and bought gourmet "cowboy caviar" salsa, flax chips, and popcorn from Lunds. Warning: do not rent the movie Bottleshock, it's awful.)




I would just post pics of the receipts, but my co-op just lists things as "produce" so it wouldn't be very informative. Here's a rundown of what I can remember:

-3 lb. bag organic apples
-Kale
-Tomatoes
-Bulk mixed salad greens
-Brussel Sprouts
-Broccoli
-Onion
-Garlic
-Spinach
-2 lb. organic carrots
-Bananas
-Potatoes
-Zucchini
-Oranges
-Bulk Cannellini Beans
-Bulk Coriander
-Jar of Salsa
-Package of Flour Tortillas
-Orange Juice
-Lime Juice
-Diet Tonic Water
-Bottle of Smirnoff Vodka

Some stuff we already had: Whole wheat flour, black beans, coconut, brown rice, peanut butter, walnuts, cashews, sunflower seeds, dates, raisins, eggs and cheese.

Happy eating,

K

A plug for people and places we like

Yesterday it was so SO gorgeous here we decided to eat dinner on the patio of The Front's new restaurant. If you live in the area, check it out, it's a great place. The food is central american influenced and not very vegetarian friendly, but still good. Nathan loved his burger and my plate of rice/beans/fried plantain/cabbage salad was really good too. They have a beautiful patio, great music variety, and a couple small tv screens showing scenery of beaches, islands, and sunsets - nothing goth or fetish themed about it!

For those of you who don't live in the area - The Front is a dance club attached to Ground Zero, a sort of bondage nightclub. Actually this weekend is their annual Rubber Ball, an awesome costume/dance party/fashion show where everyone can show off their best vinyl outfits ;-).

Unfortunately it falls on the same night as our friend Ted's band's show, which we're really excited to see for the first time at the Uptown Bar. They're called Wizards Are Real, they're opening for Little Man, only $5, if you come check it out be sure to find us and say hi!

Happy Weekend,

-Kelly

New Discovery: Young Coconuts

Yum. Yum. Yum. Right now I'm drinking a smoothie made with the meat of the first young coconut I've ever cracked. Well, technically Nathan cracked it, because my first few whacks with our huge axe knife thing weren't strong enough.

I'd never heard of "young" coconuts before we started our raw foods experiment, but they aren't what the average person would picture. The outside looks completely different and there is no milk inside, just water and "meat".

I was amazed at the amount of water inside of the thing - about a pint glass full. The coconut water is incredibly flavorful, so much so that I'd cut it with some regular water or lots of ice, and it tasted more like hazelnut than coconut. It'd probably make an excellent drink mixer!

Then there's the meat, which is bright white thick gelatinous stuff you scrape from the inside. It can be eaten alone, used in desserts, smoothies, or dehydrated into coconut flakes. Here's the recipe for the smoothie I'm loving right now, the coconut meat adds so much depth to the flavor and makes it creamy.

Coconut Orange Banana Smoothie:
-1 banana
-1 orange
-1/2 meat of one young coconut
-4 ice cubes

Blend until smooth.

At about $1.50 per coconut that gives you 2 servings of meat and 2 servings of water, these are a pretty good deal. Go to your local asian market and see if you can find them! Here is a link about how to crack and eat coconuts.

-Kelly

Cannellini Kale Soup and Chapatis

These are two new recipes we tried, borrowed from 30 Bucks A Week, to start off our first frugal week. They both got high approval ratings from myself & Nathan, but I especially loved making the chapatis. I'd never even heard of them before, they're pretty much like pita bread. Easy, SO cheap, and fun to make too. I felt like a real baker covering the dough and then rolling it out (with a drinking glass - I never bake!). Here is the link for the Cannellini Kale Soup.





Also, I discovered two awesome websites today:

Melomeals: $3.33 a day: Melody is a professional chef who cooks cheap healthy vegan stuff for herself & two teenage boys.

Crazy Sexy Life: An extensive holistic living website stemming from the documentary and book Crazy Sexy Cancer, which I definitely want to check out….

-Kelly

$30 A Week: Crunching Numbers

I always thought I was frugal buying food, just like with the rest of our spending. We rarely buy meat, expensive frozen meals, or pre-packaged stuff (cereal, cookies, etc.).

Admittedly, we are not incredibly frugal buying liquor. Seems like there's always something to celebrate, people coming over, or a new concoction to try. We buy mid-range brands, but never really put a cap on how MUCH we buy - hey, it's not gonna go bad, right?

I keep a close record of our monthly spending, to see where it all goes, and today I calculated that we average $425 a month ($98 a week) on food & liquor. The total over at 30 Bucks a Week doesn't include liquor, but I'm still not sure how they do it. We've spent $30 already this week on groceries and had a bunch of stuff already in the fridge and I can see we're not gonna make it. Of course there would be enough to survive on, but I'm not willing to reduce the amount of produce I want to eat for the sake of saving $$.

So here's my modification and justification: If we can save $200 a month, that'll be fantastic. $200/mo. = $2400/ yr. = price of the fabulous cruise we took in January. Essentially it gives us a guilt free big vacation every year, which I'd already decided is non-negotiable, because I will go crazy without some warmth to look forward to in the brutal MN winter.

Final calculation: Roughly $52/week, or $225/month is what we'll name as our food & liquor spending caps. The savings will go in a fund to put us here:

Cheers,

- Kelly

Some Food Updates & A New Experiment

I found my new favorite blog the other day: 30 Bucks A Week. Tina and Phil live in NYC and spend only $30/wk on groceries. Like us, they aren't fanatics about their experiment, they still eat out occasionally and drink alcohol, which aren't included in their weekly total. They're vegetarian and the food they eat looks really yummy - just check out their recent Mac & Cheese recipe, which Nathan is begging me to make him.

So we're going to try the $30/wk experiment, for at least a month. We currently spend about $275/mo. on groceries so it would be a significant savings for us.

Onto the food updates....

We successfully replicated the Green Papaya Salad I had at Sawatdee the other week! Modifications to the posted recipe: Left out the chili, spring onions, and fish sauce. Added shredded carrots.

The ingredients were really cheap at Shaung Hur, a large Asian grocery store near us. 2 green papays were about $1.50 and was enough for at least 4 large servings. Nathan made a simple peanut sauce to pour over his instead of the dressing in the recipe:

Simple Peanut Sauce

-Peanut Butter (couple big spoonfuls)

-Soy sauce (splash)

-Rice Wine Vinegar (splash)

-Water (splash)

Whisk everything together until smooth. Sorry for the lack of specific ingredient amounts, he just threw it together and tasted as he went. There are many more complex peanut sauce recipes out there, but this can be made in just a minute from kitchen staples.

The other night it looked like the fridge was bare, but starting to think with the $30/wk. mentality, I made do with what was in there:

Orzo Pasta Mish Mash

Ingredients:

-Orzo or whatever pasta you have around

-1/2 container of baby bella mushrooms

-1/2 onion

- 2 small tomatoes

-olive oil

-2 large cloves garlic

-lots of fresh basil (leftover from our papaya salad)

Preparation:

While pasta is cooking, saute onions and mushrooms with olive oil in a pan until really cooked (15 minutes?). I splashed some white cooking wine in after awhile too. During the last couple minutes, add in tomatoes and minced garlic until just cooked.

Mix with pasta and chopped basil. I'd recommend making a lot of the veggies because they cook down quite a bit, and I like to have about an equal ratio of veggies and pasta in my dish.

Very filling, Nathan loved it!

-Kelly