Grocery Plans for July

I was under-budget by $3.20 for the month of June, giving me a total of $128.20 for the month of July. We're doing okay on most of our basic supplies -- still have about 20 lbs of meat in the freezer, lots of pantry staples, and a garden which is producing. One of my stock-up items is the 50-lb bag of flour.  We'll run out of all-purpose flour by the end of the month. So far, I haven't found a really great price on AP flour and will wait and see if the price drops at Cash & Carry when the next ad comes out. I'll buy it when I really need it, as $13.09 is about $1 to $1.50 higher than I saw it advertised last. The other stock-up item is popping corn. I buy it in large bags at Cash & Carry

I'll be shopping at 7 stores this month. Grocery prices continue to rise, so to get as many good buys as possible, this is what it takes. I had to edit my list a bit. I had planned on buying cheddar cheese this month (as we're just now finishing off a bag of mozzarella), but mozzarella continues to be lower in price than cheddar by a dollar or two, so mozza it is.

The party peanuts may seem like an odd thing to add to my list, but when priced out per pound, the peanuts will be a cheaper source of quick protein than cheese. Plus I think they'll be a welcome addition for adding to recipes and snacking. I am still making rhu-sins -- gorp with peanuts and dried rhubarb could be tasty. The pretzel rods are for a 4th of July treat. I'm making white chocolate dipped pretzels, with red chocolate drizzle and blue sprinkles. I happened to have everything for this except the pretzels, so it seemed like a natural to me.

As you can see, I'll be under budget again, perhaps as much as $13. That amount is being set aside for stocking up later in the season or into early fall.

July Grocery List

WinCo

Lentils, 83 cents/lb, 5 pounds, 4.15

Raisins, 1 lb, about 2.67/lb

Bananas, 10 lbs, 42 cents/lb (or Walmart), 4.20

Country Farms

Watermelon 49 cents/lb, $5

Jalapenos for salsa, about 80 cents

Cash and Carry

Canned tomato paste, First Street #10, 5.89

Canned whole tomatoes, Simply Value 2.89 #10 get 2 cans (total 5.78)

Mozzarella, 10.69 until 7/7

Popcorn, 12.5 lb bag, 6.97

Carrots 10 lbs 4.47

Peanuts, First Street Party Peanuts, 52 oz. 5.49

ADM Hotel and Restaurant flour, 50-lb, 13.09 

Russet potatoes, 10-lb bag, 1.93

Walmart

Decaf coffee, Great Value 3.52

Garlic powder 3.4 oz for 98 cents (4.61 lb)

Chicken leg quarters, 5.98 10-lb bag

Fred Meyer, Senior Discount day

Butter, 2 lbs, Moovelous, 2.51 each, (5.02 total)

Milk, 6 gals, 1 whole, rest 2%, max - 12.90

Sprouts

Produce, misc $6 (2 times), $12 total, incl a head of cabbage, peppers, eggplant, cucumber

Couscous, 2.49/lb, 1 lb

Dollar Tree

Rod pretzels, $1

Total 115.02

Drop Cookies Using Broken Pretzels in Place of Nuts

Yummy, crunchy, and with a bite of salty with the sweet -- a new favorite of my family, the chocolate  and butterscotch chip and pretzel drop cookie. My fears that the crunch of the pretzels wouldn't hold up to the dough were unfounded.

I sampled cookies from right after baking (still warm and melty) to three days post-baking and I have to say, the pretzel pieces remained crunchy with every tasting. Immediately after baking, the pretzel pieces had the texture of nuts in cookies, slightly crunchy, but with a little give. As the cookies cooled and aged, the crunch became more pronounced. After the cookies cooled, I kept them in a Rubbermaid lidded container. I would assume that keeping them in an airtight container helped maintain the crunch of the pretzels. In addition, the pretzels with which I baked were very crunchy to begin -- I did not use stale pretzels.

Anyway, I am so happy with the results of these cookies. I plan on baking more and increasing the pretzel content in the dough by 50%. I'll also add 1 tablespoon of flour to the dough, as the cookies came out a bit flat.

I used both chocolate and butterscotch chips, but I also think these would be good with just one of the chips. The butterscotch chips adds to the salted caramel effect, and I highly recommended using them. The dough was to die for and I could hardly keep myself from eating dough until I was sick. I refrained, however, as I also wanted to get an accurate cookie-count for my "recipe."

Here's what I used, which was inspired by the chocolate cookie recipe on a small (6-oz) package of chips.

6 tablespoons salted butter
2 scant tablespoons vegetable oil (the substitution of oil for some of the butter was merely to spare butter)
scant 3/4 cup of granulated sugar
scant tablespoon of molasses (the molasses and sugar were to replicate brown sugar)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup of pretzel sticks, broken into 3 to 4 pieces each
extra broken pretzels to press in to the cookie dough before baking

I mixed the ingredients as I would any other chocolate chip cookie dough, blending butter and sugar, then adding egg and vanilla. When fully creamed, add in salt, soda, and flour. Then stir in the chips and pretzel pieces. Scoop by large tablespoons onto a lightly greased baking sheet. This amount of dough made about 2 dozen cookies for me. Press additional pretzel pieces into the tops of each mound of dough. I pressed 3 pieces into each, but would press 4 or 5 small pieces the next time, as the dough spread in baking and the 3 pieces looked a bit sparse.

Bake at 365 degrees for about 10 minutes, or until browned. I used a mostly-light colored, insulated baking sheet in a non-convection oven. If using a regular or a darkened baking sheet or in a convection oven, the timing might be 1 or 2 minutes less.

If you try baking cookies with pretzels, let me know how the cookies turn out for you.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers For the End of June

"wood" or "woodland" strawberries that I picked for lunch today
They're not as big as domestic strawberries, but more flavorful,
even when slightly underripe-looking. They grow wild on our property
 and are native to the Pacific northwest. Our wet springs favor
good production of these kinds of strawberries.
I'm picking a pint a day from a smallish patch near a wooded area.

Welcome summer!!
We have just this week gotten back to normal schedules and meals. So, here are our Cheap & Cheerful suppers for the week.

Friday
egg drop soup made with quinoa, Swiss chard, carrots, onions, seaweed, and eggs
crackers (leftover from reception)

Saturday
scrambled eggs with garden Swiss chard, garlic, and cheese
fresh bread and butter
carrot sticks

Sunday (Father's Day cookout)
smoked sausages in homemade buns
pasta and broccoli salad (both pasta and broccoli leftover from reception)
asparagus (daughter bought for us)
caramel nutty bars
s'mores for anyone wanting them
orange-lemonade and lilac lemonade
sparkling cider (son and DIL bought for us)

Monday
leftover pasta salad, with added cucumber and green pepper
leftover asparagus
rice sauteed with beet greens, radish greens, onions, garlic, and chopped almonds
eggplant baked in layers with mozzarella, Parmesan, tomato sauce, herbs and garlic
wild strawberries
caramel nutty bars

Tuesday
lentil salad -- cooked lentils in a vinaigrette
fry bread
sauteed Swiss chard

Wednesday
I had an egg scrambled with Swiss chard, roasted onions, and mozzarella cheese.
garden strawberries
toasted whole wheat bread
The rest of the family had a pizza which my daughter bought, plus garden strawberries. (I had to go to a meeting, so I ate early.)

Thursday
sloppy Joe's made with flat cola, ketchup, canned tomatoes, onions, green pepper and spices, served on
commercial buns
tossed salad with garden lettuce and Swiss chard plus cucumber and radishes, dressed in homemade mixture of plain yogurt, mayo, garden herbs, garlic powder, salt, cheese powder popcorn flavoring, vinegar, and oil


My family has rather ordinary tastes. All of us were thrilled to have sloppy Joe's last night, and especially thrilled that it was the version made with flat cola and served on commercial buns. Oh, those little thrills!

We're enjoying quite a bit of produce from the garden right now. I think we've had strawberries each day for the past week and a half. The Swiss chard is nearly done. It's actually begun the process of bolting, but I am picking the leaves off of the very tall stalks, daily, before pulling the old plants up to plant lettuce in that bed.

The lettuce that I planted in April is now doing well. The leafy green lettuce is big enough to pluck individual leaves from every other day, and the Romaine planted in May is growing quickly. I don't buy salad dressings, but tend to just mix something up in the bottom of the bowl before I add the greens. We enjoy both vinaigrettes and creamy dressings. Having plain yogurt on hand is a jump-start for creamy dressings. I mix some plain yogurt with mayo along with herbs and salt, and voila - tasty, creamy dressings made in minutes for just a few cents.

We also now have snow peas to use. I'll be making some sort of Asian dish for tonight's supper, using snow peas and Swiss chard from the garden, along with carrots, onions, garlic from the store and the leftover dipping sauce rom the egg rolls 2 weeks ago -- probably fried rice, as that is such an easy one-dish meal to make.

We have eggs galore, so many of us have had an egg or two with toast this week for breakfast. Lunches have been a combination of leftovers, homemade yogurt, peanut butter or egg salad sandwiches on homemade bread, salads, ramen, or pots of soup that I make in the late afternoon just for lunches.

We've just about finished off all of the desserts and treats from my daughter's reception and Father's Day, so I think I'll be baking this weekend. I've been thinking about trying a drop cookie recipe, using butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, and broken pretzels in the dough, or maybe turtle brownies, consisting of brownies topped with caramel and broken pretzels in place of nuts. I'll post how they turn out.

I am making small steps at getting ahead with the produce by freezing small amounts of strawberries to use in leaner produce months. It's just a tiny step, but my thinking is any movement in a positive direction is a good thing.

What was on your menu this past week? I hope that you had a good week and are anticipating a relaxing weekend!

Hose or Bucket?

In the past, I've opted for using a garden hose to wash our car, a small sedan. I use a shut-off nozzle, so the hose is not running continuously. However, I'd say that the hose would run for about 5 to 6 minutes for one wash. I'd like to add that according to several estimates, my water use for using a hose is below the national average by as much as 5 minutes of run-time.

The average garden hose uses about 10 gallons of water per minute. For my use, that means that I was using about 50 to 60 gallons of water each time I washed my car. The other day, I chose to use a bucket, 4 rags, liquid dish soap, and water. My bucket holds 3 gallons. I filled it 2/3 full 3 times, for a total of 6 gallons of water and did not use my hose at all. I used 1/10th of the total water to wash my car compared to how I would use a garden hose.

My 3-bucket method worked very well. The first fill included a small squirt of liquid dish soap. You really only need a tiny amount of soap, otherwise you end up using more water to rinse the soapy bubbles off of the car's surface. I used rag #1 to dip into the soapy water and wipe/scrub onto all of the painted and glass surfaces of my car (I didn't wash the wheels or any of the underside of the car). By the time I had made 1 circuit, my bucket of water was empty. I set rag #1 aside. For the second bucket, I filled it with 2 gallons of clear water and used rag #2 to wipe/scrub away dirt and some of the soap. When my bucket was empty, I had made a little more than 1 circuit around the car. I set rag #2 with rag #1. I then filled my bucket with 2 more gallons of clear water and rinsed the car once more, using rag #3. The car was clean enough by the end of this water. I used rag #4 to dry the entire car, beginning with the windows first, as they will spot if left to air dry or streak if the rag isn't dry enough. The whole process took about 20 to 25 minutes and left me with 4 dirty rags. I didn't use any extra water to rinse out the rags, but added them to the cleaning rag pile from house-cleaning that will be washed with bath towels this afternoon.

Despite the huge water savings using a bucket instead of a hose, there are circumstances where a hose would be very useful. The most obvious to me is if you live in an area that uses salt on the roads in winter. To protect the underside of a car, you'd want to use your hose to rinse the undercarriage at the end of the winter season. However, using a bucket and rags for the remainder of the car would save additional water.

The cost of water keeps rising in my area. You'd think living where it rains a lot that we'd have low water bills. We don't. When averaged out over the course of a year, our water bill is our highest utility bill, higher even than heat. Our supplier recently switched to a tiered-use system of billing, meaning that over a certain amount of use, we are billed at a higher rate. That hits families and large households hard, as naturally, the more people using water on one bill would result in a greater water usage. To compensate, our family is very careful with water use, asking everyone to take shorter showers, running the dishwasher and washing machine only when there is a full load, using low-flush toilets, allowing our lawn to go brown in summer, and using rain water and kitchen waste water to water our gardens. I want my car to look clean, but I don't want to use so much extra water that it pushes our month's use into the next tier. For this summer, I'm choosing a bucket.

Substituting Pretzels for Part of the Nuts in Baked Goods

So, I had heard of this years ago but never tried it until last weekend. I didn't have enough mixed nuts for some caramel nutty bars, so I used broken pretzel sticks for about 1/3 of the nuts called for in the recipe.

The above are bar cookies: a shortbread cookie base topped with mixed nuts and pretzel halves in a caramel sauce. I baked them the day before Father's Day and covered with plastic wrap overnight. The next afternoon, the pretzels were still crunchy, despite the fact that I live in a somewhat humid climate. I don't know if they'd keep their crunch for an extended period (week or more), or if pretzels would stay crunchy in a drop cookie dough or other dough where they'd be surrounded by a wetter mixture while baking. But they worked great in this application. The cookies were delicious. Everyone thought that the addition of pretzels was actually a bonus and not second choice.

Have you ever tried substitution broken pretzels for nuts in cookies or other baked goods? What was your opinion?

Stretching My Produce Money for the Last Two Weeks of June

I had set aside $5 for extra produce this month. Wanting to stretch that money as far as I could, I stopped at 2 stores on my errands yesterday, Walmart and Sprouts. In total, I spent $4.34. Here's what I got for my money:

3.32 lbs of bananas from Walmart at 42 cents/lb
1 eggplant, 88 cents from Sprouts
2 green peppers, 69 cents each from Sprouts
1 bunch of radishes, 69 cents from Sprouts

Just to note, with the radishes, the leaves can be washed and used as cooking greens, making this softball-sized bunch of radishes a pretty good deal at 69 cents.

I chose Sprouts and Walmart specifically because I knew I could get good produce prices by combing the two stores. Walmart and WinCo have bananas at 42 cents/lb, which is the lowest regular price per pound in my area. I had seen for myself that Sprouts' produce prices beat the other stores in my area on most other items. Sprouts has stores in 21 states and a website which has a search feature for items, allowing comparison of prices with other regular grocery stores. Here's a link to see if there is a Sprouts store near you.

The produce items that I bought are all foods that I don't grow in my garden. Currently, my garden is producing strawberries, rhubarb, kale, lettuce, snow peas, Swiss chard, and herbs. In addition, I also have frozen green beans and peas, plus canned corn, pumpkin, yams, and pineapple, and fresh cucumber, celery, onions, and carrots.

Artisanal Ketchup

"Artisanal ketchup: Hand-crafted in small batches, using a secret recipe known only to the chef. Locally-sourced ingredients are hand-stirred in an open kettle over a gentle flame, resulting in a premium tomato experience. Available for a limited time."

How much would you pay for artisanal ketchup? $6.99? $5.49? $4.99?

translations:

"artisanal" = anytime a recipe turns out homey, the artisanal label gets slapped on it
"ketchup" = okay, so this is ketchup-like, I'll give it that much
"hand-crafted" = yes, made with my own two hands
"in small batches" = it's not like I needed a gallon of ketchup, just 8 or 10 ounces
"using a secret recipe" = so secret, even I couldn't say exactly what or how much went in to it
"known only to the chef" = oops, I'm afraid the chef can't remember the recipe
"locally-sourced ingredients" = bought just down the street at Cash & Carry
"hand-stirred" = again, my two hands and one spoon
"in an open kettle" = we lost the lid to this pot a while ago
"over a gentle flame" = we have a gas stove
"resulting in a premium tomato experience" = yes -- this is how I'm selling it to my family
"available for a limited time" = we'll run out in a couple of weeks


Whenever my home-baked or scratch-cooked goods have that rustic look, I jokingly call them artisanal and hand-crafted. I've had my share of artisanal (AKA wonky-looking) loaves of bread and hand-crafted (AKA sunken) cakes. In our house, we eat the flops as well as the successes, but we do it with a smile and a laugh.


We were needing ketchup to go with sausages for last night's dinner. I was out of tomato paste, so I used canned tomatoes instead. Despite running the tomatoes through the food processor and trying to press the cooked product through a sieve, the result was a tomato product with a texture much like applesauce. I gave up trying to get something smooth and Heinz-like and just jarred the stuff in one of my fanciest glass jars and called it good. It worked just fine for our cook-out.

All joking aside, this does make me wonder about so-called artisanal products that sell for much more than standard ones. Surely, that must just be a marketing ploy for some of the food items that I see in stores.

(By the way, that's an artisanal hot dog bun in the photo, too!)

Easy Tahini

When I make hummus, if I don't have sesame seeds on hand, I just skip the tahini. But when I do have sesame seeds, I make a quick tahini which is delicious, enriches the hummus with creaminess, and adds depth to the flavor. I use hulled sesame seeds (the kind that are white), bought from bulk bins at WinCo or in the Hispanic section in packets, sometimes labeled "ajonjoli" (translation - sesame). 

To make about 1/4 cup of tahini (the amount that is usually called for in a hummus recipe that uses one 15-oz can of garbanzo beans), I buy about 1/2 cup of sesame seeds. If in the bulk bin section, I just eyeball how much is 1/2 cup. But if you need help with guessing quantities, 1/2 cup of sesame seeds is about 2.5 ounces or about 1/6th of a pound. 

If you buy the sesame seeds in a packet, after using what you need for this recipe, pop the remainder of the packet into a freezer bag and keep in the freezer. Sesame seeds are high in oils (the reason they make hummus so creamy), so naturally can go bad at room temperatures. Stored in the freezer, they'll keep for 3 years (or more). 

Making tahini at home
Into a dry skillet on Medium heat, pour 1/2 cup of hulled sesame seeds. Stir constantly until about 1/2 of the seeds are beginning to turn golden. Remove the pan from the heat, still stirring and dump into a food processor. Pulse and add about 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil (olive or vegetable). Continue processing for a couple of minutes, stirring down the sides from time to time. It's not critical that all of the seeds become butter, because in the hummus recipe, the next step will be adding the drained, canned garbanzo beans and processing some more.

To make hummus:

• After processing the roasted sesame seeds and oil into tahini, I add one 15-oz can of garbanzo beans, drained, with about 1/4 cup of lemon juice, 1 clove of garlic, minced (OR 1/8 teaspoon of garlic powder). I process until the beans are smooth.
• I add 2 tablespoons of oil (vegetable or olive), and about 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin, then process for about 30 seconds. The hummus will need a bit of thinning to make it dip-like, so I pulse in 2 to 3 tablespoons of water, until the product looks both dip-able and spreadable.
• I salt the hummus to taste. For me, this is about 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon.
• I transfer the hummus to a shallow dish and swirl the top with the back of a spoon, then drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the top. the drizzled olive oil both helps protect the hummus from drying out and adds flavor to each scoop of the hummus.

Other ingredients can be pureed into the bean mixture, such as roasted red peppers, roasted eggplant, browned onions, or roasted garlic to enrich the flavor. Chopped olives can be stirred in at the end, and the finished hummus garnished with additional chopped olives. Greek olives are especially nice for this, but canned black olives will also be tasty and a new dimension to the texture.

Tahini is an expensive product and for most of us, can only be used in a couple of recipes, so I don't think buying a container of tahini is a smart move, in most of our situations. It is so easy to make at home, buying only as much of the basic ingredients as you need at a time. For my situation, I don't think that I have ever bought commercial tahini. I've either made my own or just skipped that ingredient in a recipe. I want to add, if you are delaying making hummus at home because of the tahini, try skipping the tahini altogether. Sub in a little extra oil in with the garbanzo beans. The added oil would enhance the creaminess of the finished hummus. If you desire thinning the bean-iness of the hummus, then process in some browned onions or roasted garlic or red pepper. The results would be delicious and I think quite gourmet.

The Appetizer-Type Foods We Served: What Was Good and What Was Not so Good

First of all, so sorry that I've not responded to any comments, yet. I am trying to get everything back on track in the house and garden, working my side hustle, and recovering from a cold. However, a couple of you asked some questions that I definitely want to answer, so I will get to responding to comments in the next couple of days.

I think that I'm getting down to the very end of our reception descriptions, here. Yay! Finally onto to new topics, right?

I served 5 appetizer-type foods: a veggie and dip tray, a hummus and cracker tray (mentioned yesterday), smoked sausage and tater tot kabobs, frozen spanakopita, and frozen mini spring rolls.

The cold trays
I put together my own veggie tray, using broccoli crowns for making my own florets, baby carrots, a bundle of celery for sticks, and grape tomatoes. When shopping for the broccoli crowns, I specifically looked for ones who had a short stem and lots of individual side branches to the head, so that I would use practically all of the broccoli crown for the florets. This worked well. I bought 3 crowns, trimming about 1/8th-inch from each crown to compost (browning/aged-looking) and another 1/4-inch that wasn't needed as part of each floret (I ate these trimmings as I was cutting, so no waste there). We didn't even use one of the crowns, and had a lot of leftover broccoli florets. In the future, I would buy just one broccoli crown, if there were 3 other vegetables on the tray. I also over-bought on the baby carrots. I bought a 2-lb bag and used about 1 pound. Ditto with the grape tomatoes. I bought 2 pints and only used 1 pint. I bought 1 bundle of celery and used most of it, not in the veggie tray but in the preparation of the potato salad and chicken salad. If I didn't have use for the rest of a celery bundle, then perhaps I would have chosen a different 4th vegetable in place of celery, such as a sweet pepper to cut into strips. Anyway, over-buying seems to be one of my problems with planning. I had a packet of dip seasoning that had been given to me as a gift a couple of Christmases ago. I used that packet (Parmesan-Asiago dip) along with strained plain homemade yogurt (in place of sour cream) and mayonnaise to make the dip. Plain yogurt works well as a sour cream substitute in dips. The dip packet instructions called for a pint of sour cream. That would have cost me $1.74 at Walmart. In contrast, because I make my own yogurt, a pint of plain yogurt cost me about 30 cents. Savings of almost $1.50.

Since we had so many foods offered, I could have easily set out just one box/type of crackers with the hummus. So, I over-bought by 1 box. Lesson learned.

The hot appetizers
The smoked sausage and tater tot kabobs must have been pretty popular. After I set the tray out, I never saw any kabobs again, just lots of empty toothpicks. To make the kabobs, we used smoked sausage (the type of sausage that you might use in place of a hot dog on the grill -- fatter and more flavor than standard hot dogs. You could also use kielbasa.), frozen tater tots, and toothpicks. I had planned on making a dipping sauce, but I ran out of time and didn't think a dipping sauce would be necessary. I used 1.25 pounds of smoked sausage, cut into 28 chunks (not quite 3/4-oz each). I browned the sausage on a baking sheet in a 350 degree F oven for about 20 minutes, until looking lightly browned and a bit puffy). Meanwhile, in a 410 degree F oven (second oven), I browned about 30 individual tater tots on a baking sheet for about 25 minutes, or until browned and crispy. When both were done, I speared a sausage piece and tater tot together with a toothpick. I had thought I could bake the two items on toothpicks together, but at the last minute, 1 decided to bake them separately so that both parts would be perfectly cooked. The whole meat and potato thing must have appealed to a few of our guests and these were the only hot appetizer of which we completely ran out. The smoked sausage cost $1.75 and the amount of tater tots cost about 25 cents. Each kabob, then, cost about 7 cents.

The frozen spanakopita is an item that I have bought once before. I love these. They're pastry triangles filled with a combination of feta cheese and spinach. This product is part of an up-scale line offered at our local Fred Meyer. It's my understanding that other Kroger affiliates carry the Private Selection label. Selling for $5.99 per box, each has 16 pieces. I saved about 60 cents per box, using my Senior Discount, so each serving costs 33 cents. That's kind of pricey, I think. If my budget were even smaller for an event like we hosted, I would nix this item based on cost alone, yummy as it is. I bought 2 boxes and didn't bake up the second box. So, we have a box in reserve for another special occasion.

The frozen mini spring rolls were the items that I thought were not great. The flavor was good, but the texture was just so-so. The instructions on the box suggested baking the product. Well, baking them yielded a wrapper that was tough and crunchy, not light and crispy (as you'd have deep-frying the rolls). I thought it was a disappointment. I bought 2 boxes and only used 1. When I use the second box, I will at the very least, shallow-fry them in oil. I think the resulting texture would be much improved. I paid $4.98 at Walmart for 15 pieces, working out to 33 cents per roll. The package did come with a dipping sauce, so that was nice. However, at 33 cents per piece, I would give this a pass. 

Both of the frozen appetizers were over 4 times the cost of the sausage and tater kabobs, per serving. I think I could have saved myself a chunk of money and doubled-up on the sausage and tater kabobs.

I learn something with each event or party that I host. If such an event comes up again, I think I could pull it together for about $85 and feel like the offerings were good, simply by eliminating some of the over-buying, even more careful shopping, and skipping foods that were over-priced for the quality.