Grocery shop prep for a New Year

Every week we go through the same routine, there is nothing to eat!  What do we want to eat?  What do we buy?  How come no one ate any of that?  And where did all the (insert this week's yummiest item) go?  And we start again...
When I sit down to make a grocery list, as I may have said before...I try to start at home..
Step #1:What is in the freezer?  What is in the cupboard?  What is in the fridge? (that maybe shouldn't be anymore....)
~For example, there is a big chicken in the freezer, some pork chops and potatoes, carrots and onions in the bins, and lots of frozen veggies.  Dried pasta, and brown rice.  Oh and leftover chili in the freezer (from New year's eve).  If it weren't for the missing cheese, yogurt and bananas, I could likely forgo a trip to the grocery store until at least Wednesday evening. 
Step #2: What is in the flyer?
~I tend to go back and forth between two grocery stores.  Quality Foods is nice and close to home, a small store that isn't too busy...But the big draw for me is that it is right beside the skating rink (a place I go to once in awhile!)...so there tends to be the place where I go if we have run out of something that cannot wait.  Thrifty Foods used to be my favourite grocery store...Beautiful produce, great fish counter, they usually have the harder to find items and great sales (which make up for the slightly higher prices)...However, the great sales are not so great anymore and the slightly higher prices have gotten a lot higher in recent months.  Take hot chocolate for example: I don't buy a number of the ready made ones (one, I have a problem with some of their business practices and some of the others use cellulose in their hot chocolate, not so keen on the kids having wood pulp with their breakfast in the morning), but I like to have some instant stuff on hand for when I am not making my own, so I buy Murchie's Hot chocolate as it has only what I would be putting in my own.  Thrifty foods price: 9.99...Regular price at Quality foods, 8.99, on sale for $7.49.  Still expensive, but at least I am not paying for half a container of wood pulp.  Cereal is another area where the prices are quite a bit higher than other places...So, for Cereal, if Costco doesn't have it, we don't eat it. 
The one area where Quality foods doesn't hold up to Thrifty's is in their bulk section.  I can get organic dried beans if I want, or regular dried beans, and they are all from the US or Canada.  I can also get bulk Quinoa, and Quinoa flakes (which are great for cookies!)...
So what I do, is I shop the flyers...and compare.  This week's winner?  Thrifty Foods, with $1.00/lb for Gala apples and 7.99 for a 5 lb bag of California clementines (Q.foods has them too, 2.99 for a 2 lb bag, so same price), and $2.00 a box for Nature Valley Granola bars (we go through the roasted almond ones and the Oats-n-honey ones like crazy...oh and the Chocolate ones.  In their bakery section, Thrify's has a 900g (2 lb) loaf of whole wheat-low sodium sandwich bread for $3.69.  And when you go through bread like we do in our house, that is a great price. 
Over at The Poorganic Life she has a great list of tips to getting the processed stuff out of your grocery order and staying on budget.  Here is the link for this week's flyer over at
Thrifty foods
Quality foods
And some great templates for getting started on a New Year's grocery list.
Grocery list template from Not QuiteSuzie Homemaker
Grocery list from Your Printable Daily Planner

Happy Packing!

Kim

Sunday Food for Thought

Another weekend almost done, and it is time to plan those meals again...

• Sunday: Baked Rigatoni and salad
• Monday (Meatless): Potato and Kale Soup
• Tuesday (should be Turkey): Chicken Curry with veggies and rice
• Wednesday: Baked Pork chops with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed carrots & broccoli
• Thursday: (Dad's night to cook, I have a skating club meeting!) Whole Wheat Pancakes and (hopefully) fruit salad
• Friday (Fish!): Seafood chowder with green salad and homemade bread
• Saturday: Lasagne and Ceasar Salad with homemade garlic toast (and the big girls night to cook!)

A tip for making a budget friendly menu: after you have reviewed what you already "own" (for example we have fish and prawns in the freezer, as well as pork chops and chicken thighs for curry), then browse your favourite grocery store flyer before you make your menu.  Once in a while for fun, I will pick a new recipe and shop for the ingredients (in spite of the price!) afterwards, but on a weekly basis, I work from both what we already have and what is on sale for the week.  Typically, I buy our meat on a monthly basis and supplement it with what the butcher has on sale each week, but I also have the bonus of driving past the butcher shop (and passing his sign advertising the specials) four times a day, five days a week.
   Lunches area also planned this way...yogurt on sale (Olympic Organic 650 g, for $2.99, as well as the 1.75 kg size for $8.99) means yogurt in lunches, in banana bread and muffins and also Raita for chicken curry on Tuesday.  Roasting chickens on sale last week, means there is chicken for sandwiches and also homemade stock.  And Gala apples as big as my ten year old's head on sale .99/lb, means apple crisp for Sunday dessert.   So, this week, our grocery dollars went to Thrifty foods but only because everything was on sale.

Happy Packing!

Kim

Honey Whole Wheat, makes three loaves

Terra Breads Artisan Granola...Product Review...And Give-away!

     You know what happens when you get ready to go to the grocery store...You check the cupboards, you make the menu, you make your list, you ask the rest of the family what they want to add to the list, and then you grab your shopping bags and you go.  Right.  So what about the things YOU like to eat?  Do those things get on the list?  Not the things you know you should eat, like fish and fruit and vegetables and chicken breast.  But the things you like to eat...Like some of Liberte Yogurt's yummy Mediterranean Cafe flavoured yogurt that comes in the teeny tiny container (the size that your husband or teenage son would eat in one sitting), or a carton of fresh squeezed orange juice (when really the nutritional value of the frozen stuff from concentrate is just as good).  Those things you don't buy because no one else in the house really notices if you buy that kind or the bigger cheaper brand that is really just as good, and since we are all trying to manage our grocery bill these days.  But really, don't you deserve a little treat too?  Once in awhile.

  

   A couple of weeks ago, I did just that.  I had made my list and was heading off to Thrifty's for a weekly shop.  Part of my list included all the ingredients for making some homemade granola.  I have a fabulous recipe for making cranberry almond granola sweetened with Quebec Maple Syrup (sent to me by Dear Ole Dad, because you cannot bring any real quantity of it on the airplane anymore with the quantities rules for liquids).  This was going to be my treat.  However, Rob was moaning that it meant that he was going to have to eat granola for two weeks straight and he wasn't so keen on that.  (the only drawback to homemade is it really doesn't keep so well).  While I was in the cereal aisle, I found Terra Breads artisan granola with the other granolas.    Quickly, I shelved my plan to make some and purchased the Terra Breads one instead (even though it was a little more than I was thinking of spending).  You see, my husband and I had always frequented Terra Breads bakery on West 4th in Kitsilano while we were living in Vancouver .  It was one of our favourite places to stop for bread or to pick up sandwiches to take with us on bike rides or to the beach.   Standing there in the cereal aisle that day, I could almost taste those sandwiches we had eaten on those trips to Jericho beach or Kits beach or on a bike ride out to UBC.   And while I was pretty sure the granola wouldn't taste like sandwiches, I was convinced that I wouldn't be disappointed.

     I showed my husband what I had bought when I got home, and reminded the kids (all four of them) that it wasn't for them.  A treat just for us, so of course my 7 year old wanted a bowl.  For the next four days, I enjoyed the delicious sweet granola with tart cranberries over vanilla yogurt for breakfast.  And I did let my 7 year old have a small bowl full.  And she liked it as well (of course).  It has lots of cranberries and raisins too (which I think are a nice surprise mixed in with the cranberries.  Pieces of almonds, and cashews and sweet clusters of rolled oats and barley, with crunch but just a touch (so you don't end up with those hard pieces that sometimes can scratch the roof of your mouth).  Just delightful.  We ate it with yogurt mostly, but my hubby had his with milk.  And we both ate our share straight out of the bag.  The only thing we were disappointed with was the size of the bag.  It was a little on the small side, and it was gone too quickly!

   We were so pleased with our granola treat that I emailed Terra Breads and asked them if I could review the Granola for my Blog...And they were very pleased and happily agreed to send a couple of bags of Artisan Granola that I could give away to a couple of local followers (of which I know there are quite a few of you out there, you're just the silent types).
The bags arrived this morning, via Grayhound Bus so they didn't get stuck in the looming Postal strike.
So, here is what you do for a chance at the giveaway...Post a comment at the end of this entry telling us what you like about granola, and how you enjoy your granola (like trail mix, with yogurt, etc).  And if you have already tried Terra Breads granola, please go to Thrifty Foods Website and tell them how happy you are to have found it on the shelves and that you hope they keep carrying it.  Anyone from here can tell you, you find something great on the grocery store shelves and then you fall in love with it and then it is gone.   So we are hoping that that doesn't happen with this yummy treat.
I will choose two local readers at random to receive this great breakfast treat.


And yes, I put vanilla yogurt and a container of granola in my dear daughter's lunchbox, and she loved it.


Happy Packing!

...what Terra Breads has to say about their Artisan Granola...
                   

Artisan Granola

We make our specialty granola by hand in our artisan bakery. We mix quality ingredients —
including whole grains, oats, cashews, almonds, coconut, cranberries, raisins, dates and honey — many of them organic, then toast them until
golden brown in our bakery ovens.
Enjoy our fresh granola for breakfast with yogurt, milk or cream — or just on its own as a great trail mix snack.