Grocery Spending November 2025

my 2nd grocery haul of November, just before Thanksgiving

I grocery shopped 3 days in person in November, one at Walmart, then the trip that I previously blogged about and this one above. I also gave my daughter $10 to go get some donuts for us on the day after Thanksgiving. It was the end of the month, and I knew we had at least $10 left in the budget, so we splurged! She spent all $10 and chipped in about 75 cents of her own money.

Just before Thanksgiving I needed a few items, so I made the trip down to WinCo, photo above. From left to right, front to back, here's what I bought at WinCo for $119.38:

2 dozen eggs

1 gallon milk

1 bundle celery

8 Fuji apples

4 bananas

1 head cabbage

10 lbs carrots

big bulk bag raisins

big bulk bag peanuts

2 large sweet potatoes

2 bags of cranberries

4 cans corn

3 avocados

1/2 lb mushrooms

4 lbs oranges

4 cans green beans

bulk fresh ground peanut butter

small bulk bag iodized salt

small bulk bag almond flour

2 lb bag tangerines

8 lbs butter

2 blocks mozzarella

1 block cheddar

2 large cans tomato paste

4 cans black olives

1 jar green olives

1 bag breakfast sausage

1 pint whipping cream

small amount of bulk bin coffee for making cold brew

2 bags frozen peas

We're pretty much well-stocked. Some of these items I haven't even touched yet, obviously some of the canned veggies, but also the bag of tangerines, the bag of carrots, the avocados, the eggs, most of the butter, and the peanut butter. 

Most of what I bought specifically for Thanksgiving was priced near what I recall spending a few years ago. The celery was 97 cents/bundle, cranberries were 97 cents/bag, sweet potatoes were 97 cents/lb, canned olives were 98 cents ea, and canned veggies were 50 cents/can. The whipping cream was $2.58/pint, and I can't recall what I've paid for that in recent years. Do you recall if any of the Thanksgiving foods were a fair deal this year? I wouldn't say we got bargains on those foods, but at least I didn't feel gouged.

My total for the month spending, then, was $255.19 ($11.06 Walmart, $114.75 WinCo, $119.38 WinCo, $10 donuts) in person plus $119.66 pro-rated portion of beef delivery, for a grand total of $374.85 My budgeted amount is a max of $400 per month, with usual spending typically between $375 and $400. I came in just about average this month. 

Next time I shop I'll be buying Christmas foods!

How's the snow been in your area? We had a tiny amount of snow and rain mixed yesterday afternoon, but just rain since. I will say that it's been cold for here. I now get out for a walk in the afternoon, after the real chill has worn off, and it is still quite cold. And the nights have been very cold for me. Today when I did the laundry and remade the bed, I added a comforter to the layers. I'm hoping this will make sleeping much more comfortable. It's tricky. You put too many layers on the bed, and you wake up sweating, or like for me, I wake with a headache. If you put too few layers on, I find it too chilly to sleep well. Let's hope I got it right for tonight. I hope everyone is warm and cozy right now. Talk to you more tomorrow.

Christmas Decorating on a Dime (or Less)

How was your Thanksgiving weekend? Did you have a good time connecting with loved ones? How many here went out Black Friday shopping? We enjoyed our Thanksgiving. But was I ever tired after. I felt like I couldn't focus my mind at all on Friday. I stayed in and baked a batch of bread and washed a lot of dishes from Thursday's dinner. No Black Friday shopping for me. Or Saturday or Sunday. But I am gearing up for some shopping, just as soon as my family gets back to me on what's most important to them this year.

I have begun decorating, however.

You reach a point in life where you really have a lot of holiday decorative pieces. For me, unless I need to replace a worn out something, I'm not inclined to add more to our stash. So my cost to decorate is just about zilch.

Here's a cozy spot in our kitchen that I pulled together with what I have already. At first I just wanted to do something nice with my kitchen candle. I light this candle when I wake up. This time of year, it's dark for a couple of hours in the morning, and a little candle glow has a comforting feel.

First, I put the candle on a plate and surrounded it with greens from outdoors and some pinecones, red balls, and chunks of cinnamon that I had in a bag with our Christmas decorations. It looked nice, but I also wanted to accent more of the red. So I folded a red striped kitchen towel and placed it under the decorated candle plate. Nice, but not quite. So I added a wooden tray under the towel and candle plate. Good, but this would be the prefect place for our Christmas coffee mugs, I thought. And now, it has just the cheery look I was after.

I didn't spend a lot of time working on this. In fact, I was washing a large batch of dirty dishes (still no dishwasher). As I would finish a chunk, I would reward myself with a minute to do something with the candle plate. Switching up dull jobs with tasks that I enjoy helps me get through moments of drudgery.

Where is your cozy spot in the house? Have you added some Christmas cheer to that place?

One last invite reminder (I'll keep a link in the side bar this month) -- I'm doing some Advent readings on my other blog. You're welcome to join me. The first one went up yesterday morning, the second one this morning.

How to Not Eat Too Much at Thanksgiving

So, you've dug out your stretchiest, most loose-fitting clothes from your closet and simply accepted the fact that you will eat too much. Experts estimate that Americans typically consume ~3000 calories on Thanksgiving in the main meal alone. (That's enough for two of me on one day.) But it doesn't need to end this way.

I've been using this technique to "survive" Thanksgiving without the excess bloat and discomfort since I was 20 and had just lost my teen "baby" fat. It works. It's sensible. I have zero regrets after the big day.

Plan What You'll Eat in Advance

• if you're in charge of the menu, you already know what will be served. If you are guesting at someone else's table, inquire in advance what everyone else will be bringing.
• if you have no way of knowing what will be on the buffet or table in advance, take a few minutes before filling your plate to assess all that is there. Size it all up. Don't wait until you come to each section of the buffet or each dish is passed to decide if you will have some. 
• decide in advance what matters the most to you in the meal to come. 
• decide in advance whether or not you will have dessert. If you will, then you may need to eat less of some of the main plate foods, such as carby foods or high-fat foods.
• use the 1/4, 1/4, 1/2 rule for filling your plate. 1/4 filled with protein, 1/4 filled with carbs, and 1/2 filled with fruits and vegetables. Within that 1/2 of F/V, consider if the offered selection has a lot of high-fat options, like vegetable dishes in sauces, and limit the serving size of those dishes to just part of the 1/2 and fill the rest of that 1/2 plate with lower fat veggies/fruits.
• remember, when you dine in a restaurant, you don't order some of everything. You read over the menu and make your selection, knowing you won't be tasting everything offered. And this is key -- you know that you'll still be satisfied.

Let me give you an example of how I'm planning my plate to look: 1/4 smoked pork and sliced roasted chicken, almost 1/4 bread/herb stuffing with a single roasted baby potato and 1 tablespoon of sweet potato casserole, a small portion of green bean casserole and a larger portion of kale/prune salad plus a couple of carrot, celery sticks, and olives. There will be 2 tablespoons of gravy divided between the chicken and the stuffing.

Portion Size

• visualize how much you would normally eat for an everyday dinner
• try not to pile the plate high. If your everyday meal lays low on your dinner plate, then try to make your Thanksgiving plate look this way, too.
• dinner plates are big. Don't put any food along the outer 1 to 1.5 inches of the plate. Only use the center and a little bit of the rim of the dinner plate.
• remind yourself that dessert is still to come.

How to Deal With FOMO

• if you know you will have FOMO, make a plan to focus your plate on those specific foods. If you know you often eat mashed potatoes at normal dinners, put just a taste of potatoes on your plate at Thanksgiving. But you may also know that Auntie Peg always brings your favorite green bean casserole. Make sure you incorporate some of this deliciousness on your plate.
• set aside (in another copntainer) a small portion of the foods you really like but don't have room for to eat the next day. If you're guesting and your hostess provides a disposable plate for you to fill to take home, plan on adding those foods that trigger FOMO for you.

How I'll deal with FOMO: I'll have some pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, but save a slice of apple pie for Friday. I don't want to forgo that apple pie altogether.

Skip Seconds

• this one is hard, I know. When everyone gets up to get second helpings or passes the dish around the table another time, fill your glass with sparkling water, maybe grab a couple of carrot and celery sticks, and wait for dessert. The important thing is to make this decision in advance of sitting down to the meal. And remember, you can set aside some of your favs or ask your hostess if you can take a plate of your favs home to have the next day for your lunch.

This plan works for the entire holiday season. There will be so many opportunities to indulge over the next 5 weeks. Next week you'll have a new selection of holiday treats and goodies. Every time you gather with family and friends or open a gifted tin of holiday cookies or show up to a work buffet lunch, you can take charge of what you choose and still not feel deprived. 

If you are underweight and need to gain a pound or two, disregard this entire post. Eat away, my friend!

One of the great things about preparing for Thanksgiving dinner . . .

. . . is all of the tasting I get to do the days before the holiday.

Today I made the apple pie filling and cranberry sauce (yes, I decided to buy cranberries). Both are so delicious that I can hardly wait for Thursday. For the pie filling I used frozen apple chunks from our tree apples. When apples would fall or get knocked off in summer, I would cut off the bad parts and chop and freeze the rest. Well, those chunks are what I used for the apple filling. I also used some of the crabapple juice made this fall to flavor the syrup/sauce for the apple pie filling. The combination of tasty apples and the crabapple juice really made the filling out-of-this-world delicious!

In addition to the sweet stuff, I made the cream of mushroom soup for green bean casserole. Oh my, I know I was hungry for lunch while I was cooking, but homemade cream of mushroom soup is some seriously awesome stuff. I used a lot of mushrooms in this soup. If you've never made cream of mushroom soup, and you'd like to try it (either for dietary restrictions of simply because you want to try something yummy), it's basically a white sauce started with minced onions and sliced mushrooms in the melting butter/olive oil, cooked until most of the liquid has evaporated from the mushrooms, then stir in the flour and add milk or cream. I used plain, unsweetened soy milk as my milk. Once thickened, I season with onion powder, dried thyme, salt, black pepper, and a dash of nutmeg.

I also chopped celery and onions for bread stuffing, and I cut carrot sticks and submerged them in a jar of leftover dill pickle juice to make refrigerator pickled carrots.

It's been a busy day, but productive.

How are your prep activities coming?

Invite reminder -- I will begin Advent readings, various Old and New Testament passages and verses on Sunday, Nov. 30 on my other blog His love resets my heart. I would like to invite you to join me in these daily readings leading up to Christmas. I usually have the day's readings posted by 7 AM PST, if you're interested.

The components of my morning power smoothie

I call this a power smoothie because it fuels me for several hours, despite being primarily fruits, vegetables, and a little protein. After one of these, I can go for 4+ hours before I need to eat anything else. Any other breakfast and I'm hungry and lackluster 2 to 3 hours later. My version of a smoothie may not be a power one for you, however. But here's what I put in mine, nonetheless.

Making smoothies can be a bit of a pain first thing in the morning. To at least have 2 out of every 3 mornings easy for me, I make 3 days worth of smoothies at a time, refrigerating the leftovers to stir and pour the following days.

As I'm assembling a 3-day master smoothie, I consider these categories:

• orange vegetables
• red vegetables
• green vegetables
• purple/blue fruit
• any miscellaneous fruit that would add sweetness and bulk
• protein
• plus green tea for caffeine and antioxidants and flax seed meal for fiber and omega-3s

I incorporate a total of 6 servings of fruits and vegetables in the master, so that I will get 2 servings with each day's portion.

In this day's mix I added a whole banana, a serving of frozen blackberries, a serving of pumpkin puree, 2 tablespoons of organic beet root powder, and a scoop of greens powder = roughly 6 servings of fruits/vegetables. I also added 6 tablespoons of defatted peanut butter powder for protein, the contents of 1 green tea tea bag, and 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal, plus water to puree the batch.

🥕I alternate orange vegetables between pumpkin, cooked sweet potatoes, and steamed carrots (leftover from a previous meal). All three options provide a lot of Vitamin A. 

 Beet root powder (the red vegetable) helps control blood pressure, improves recovery after exercising, and improves blood flow to the brain. All are areas I need help with. 

🥬 I use a commercial greens powder, but could also use a 1/2 cup of cooked leafy greens like spinach or kale. However, the greens powder I use contains two types of beneficial algae, which I especially appreciate for their cardiovascular benefits. Commercial greens powders can be expensive, so I use just 1 scoop (serving) per 3 smoothies.

🫐 We have a lot of frozen blackberries from our backyard patch harvested each summer. We also have some blueberries and some raspberries. The blackberries are wild ones, with large seeds. The seeds themselves are good for digestion, contain omega-3s and omega-9s, contain protein, and are beneficial for both skin and hair. The flesh of blackberries are rich in antioxidants, high in Vitamins C and K, and contain compounds that may help prevent heart disease and insulin resistance. I also like to use our patch's raspberries. Both raspberries and blackberries contain ellagic acid, which may work to prevent age-related cognitive decline and slow the growth of cancer cells.

🍌 The miscellaneous fruit is often bananas, as they're inexpensive, provide bulk and sweetness to cover strong flavors like beet powder or cooked green vegetables, and they contain potassium and magnesium. I also use homegrown crabapple and apple sauces or frozen pear chunks in smoothies when we're out of bananas.

🥜 Protein is a little more difficult for me, as I can't do dairy. I use plenty of soy milk in baking and cooking during the day, so I prefer not to also add more soy to my smoothies. My most favorite protein sources for smoothies, then, are peanut butter powder, natural peanut butter, and almond flour. I also sometimes add a couple of spoonfuls of cooked brown rice or cooked quinoa to complement the amino acids in the nut and peanut butter protein components. 

🫖 This next addition to my smoothies may sound odd, but I empty the contents of a single small green tea tea bag into the master smoothie. If you've had matcha tea, you've eaten tea leaves. Matcha is finely ground green tea leaves (of a particular green tea plant), ground to a powder and stirred into hot water. As a tea, each cup contains greater concentrations of both flavor and antioxidants of green tea compared to infusing a tea bag in hot water. So, adding the contents (but not the bag itself) of a  single green tea tea bag adds concentrated antioxidants to my smoothie. Green tea contains polyphenols, l-theanine, and caffeine and may help with cholesterol, brain health, metabolism, and mitigating cancer risk.

🌾 Finally, I add 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal to the master smoothie, adding omega-3s, fiber, protein, and lignans (fights plaque build-up in arteries and may help prevent hormone-fueled cancers, like breast cancer).

I said that making a 3-day master smoothie saves time for me. But I also like making this 3-day batch because it allows me to have greater variety of ingredients than I would likely add to a single day's smoothie. I likely wouldn't add 1/3 of a banana or 1/3 of a tea bag's contents or a single teaspoon of flax seed meal if I were making just that morning's smoothie. This way, I include a kaleidoscope of colorful ingredients in every sip.

My thoughts on powders vs whole foods

Some of the ingredients that I use are in powdered form, like the beet powder, the greens powder, and defatted peanut butter powder. In a perfect world, I believe it would be better to only use whole foods. However, for the beets and algae in particular, the powder is such a convenience and ensures I actually use both beet root and these particular greens in each smoothie. The defatted peanut butter is high in protein and low in fat, and I will favor those attributes over actual peanut butter for protein for a few days per week. The peanut butter, though, adds needed fats. So I like to rotate what I use for protein.

Do you have any favorite smoothie variations or additions? Bottom's up!

On another topic -- I will begin Advent readings, various Old and New Testament passages and verses on Sunday, Nov. 30 on my other blog His love resets my heart. I would like to invite you to join me in these daily readings leading up to Christmas. I usually have the day's readings posted by 7 AM PST, if you're interested.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for the Week Before Thanksgiving

oven fries baked in beef fat

Friday (One daughter now does the pizza on Fridays. She wanted to master making pizza from scratch, so I suggested she take over Friday's dinner. She's now a pro.)

scratch pepperoni pizza
cabbage, kale, raisin salad
steamed carrots (saved the residual water to add to my breakfast smoothie the next day)

Saturday
bean and cheese burritos in homemade tortillas, salsa on the side
sautéed beet greens and onions
sautéed spiced apples

Sunday (My husband made dinner for us. He has a couple of things he makes regularly for us, soup being one, burritos including the tortillas being another.)
chicken and vegetable soup, using frozen chicken in stock from last week's roasted chicken
scratch biscuits
apple wedges

Monday
BBQ beef bowls -- beef simmered in BBQ spices, a little tomato paste, vinegar, and brown sugar, topped with cheese, all on top of brown rice, with shredded radish leaves dressed in avocado oil, salt, and chive blossom vinegar on the side, along with avocado slices and chopped yellow tomatoes
sweet potato oven fries baked in a mix of beef fat and vegetable oil
carrot cookies

I had some fat that I cut off of the cut of beef I used in the BBQ bowls and set aside until Tuesday. On Tuesday I cut the fat into small dices and rendered fat to use in cooking. This fat was then used in oven fries on Tuesday and Thursday. I froze the last bit of rendered fat after using what I needed to make the fries.

Tuesday
tuna melts on scratch French bread, yum!
roasted pumpkin cubes
oven fries baked in beef fat
sautéed Brussel sprout leaves, kale, and cabbage sprouts in ham fat (cabbage sprouts are the baby plants which grew at the cutting spot from harvesting cabbage heads) 

Wednesday (My other daughter has wanted to make eggs Benedict for a while, and this was the night she tried them. The English muffins turned out great and the Hollandaise sauce was perfect. We have some leftover Hollandaise -- any suggestions for using it?)
eggs Benedict on homemade English muffins with scratch Hollandaise sauce
frozen peas
stewed prunes

Thursday
leftover cooked ground beef patties in gravy from the freezer
oven fries baked in beef fat
beet leaves mixed with Swiss chard sautéed in ham fat
roasted pumpkin cubes
sautéed frozen apple chunks, using up last of spiced cider for the liquid

Preparing for Thanksgiving

Our fridge is beginning to empty out after doing my big stock-up at WinCo a week ago. Empty is how I want it going into the prep for Thanksgiving, so this is a good thing. You know how this is. I wish there was a rent-a-fridge just for a holiday, or an expandable feature to temporarily increase the capacity of the fridge you have. I need space to thaw some frozen meat and store casserole dishes as they await baking on Thursday. I will also need space for leftovers on Thanksgiving. I'll do a good cleaning of the fridge in the next couple of days, and that will hopefully identify more than can be used or thrown out. No grocery shopping this week, not even to pick up bananas.

In the garden

Unless we have a very mild rest of November, I think the Brussel sprout leaves and Swiss chard are done for the season. If winter is mild, both might come back briefly in spring. I still have some kale, radish leaves, beet roots, and turnips in the garden. I'm also down to my last homegrown pumpkin (out of 8). This last one is the largest. I think I can get 3 meals out of this one. I still have 2 large purchased Jack o' lantern pumpkins to cook and puree. With each passing week we use more and more purchased vegetables.

My favorite meal this week -- honestly I loved many of them. But if I had to choose one which surprised me how much we all enjoyed it was the BBQ beef bowls. All of the combine flavors and textures made this really delicious. Taking a bite of the tangy radish greens (dressed in an oil and vinegar) along with a slightly sweet bit of BBQ beef and a creamy bite of avocado was awesome.

Did you have a favorite meal this past week?

Vintage Thanksgiving: 1960s Edition

One of my daughters picked these 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s cookbooks up at Goodwill for me, knowing my affinity for vintage cookbooks. The (c.1959, p. 1965) holiday one has a multipage section devoted to Thanksgiving. I love reading vintage holiday menus. Although the specific recipe may be different from what my mother prepared, they conjure up what my memory wants to believe holidays were actually like, maybe in a different home or as featured in an advertisement or movie. I thought it would be fun today to go through their suggestions.

First of all, they provided 3 different menus, one featuring turkey as the main dish, the next featuring a roast chicken, and the third with rock Cornish game hens. Poultry, whichever you choose, was the featured type of meat. 

In the section for the turkey menu, they provided a handy guide for how to carve a turkey. 

Cooking instructions, from what I understand, are outdated, as turkeys that you purchase today cook faster than those in the past. The turkeys today are different, as well as our now preference for slightly less done poultry.

There was even a handy guide for spiffing up some of the traditional foods you might serve.

Dinner Accents: appetizers, salads, hot side dishes

apple-pineapple slaw, cranberry jello ring
I think the dish at the top is mayonnaise

creamed onions

an assortment of side dishes -- pretty serving dish

Some side dishes are what we might find on the table today, like baked butternut squash, buttered green beans, orange-glazed sweet potatoes, green peas, Waldorf salad, and pickled beets. But others were less familiar to me, such as creamed onions, a cranberry-strawberry-cream cheese-marshmallow-pineapple-lemon-mayo jello ring, and an apple-pineapple slaw.

The starchy dishes included herb and bread stuffing, corn bread, mashed potatoes, mushroom wild rice, and biscuits.

hot tomato starter

All menus had a starter dish -- hot tomato soup, hot oyster stew, or harvest fruit cup.

And I think there was a lot of coffee poured at holiday meals, if the menus are any indication. Hot coffee is the only beverage listed for all three menus.

mincemeat pie, pumpkin custard pie, cranberry mincemeat pie

Happy Endings

Let's get to the desserts.

pumpkin chiffon tarts, date-orange pudding, steamed cranberry pudding

The list is extensive: classic pumpkin custard pie, mincemeat pie, cranberry mince pie (that sounds interesting), pumpkin chiffon tarts, cheesecake mince tarts, date-orange dessert (a cake-like pudding topped with na glaze and hard sauce), cranberry steamed pudding, and something called pilgrim hats made with upside down, flat-bottomed ice cream cones, puffed rice cereal, and caramel candies made to look like a pilgrims hat. The hat band is made from jelly candies cut into strips. I think that last one was meant to appeal to children at Thanksgiving.

The cookbook also provided instructions for crafting table favors/place cards for each place setting, little pilgrim men.

So, tie on your apron, put on your string of pearls, and get those high-heeled pumps on. We've got a Thanksgiving meal to make!

Carrot-Spice Drop Cookies

I mentioned these cookies in yesterday's post on my recent grocery haul and how I would/could use those foods. These are tasty and pack some Vitamin A into each bite. Any time I can work a little more veggies into our foods, I consider that a win.

Carrot Spice Drop Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup gently packed light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

pinch ground cloves

1 large grated carrot, about 1 cup plus a tablespoon packed into a measuring cup once grated

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash, but no need to peel carrot. Grate carrot, measure, and dump onto a small paper towel. Allow to drain while mixing the rest of the batter.

Cream butter and brown sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla. Stir in soda, salt, and spices.

Fold the paper towel over the grated carrot and gently press out moisture. Dump carrot into batter. Stir in flour.

Grease a large baking sheet. (I use an insulated one.) Drop dough onto the prepared baking sheet about 2 inches apart. (I use my smallest -- 1 tablespoon -- cookie scoop.) Gently tuck in any stray shreds of carrot hanging off the dough.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes in the middle of the oven, until the edges are lightly golden and the tops look set/dry. Allow to sit on sheet for 1 minute then remove to a cooling rack. If you use a non-insulated baking sheet, check for doneness at the 14 minute mark or slightly before.

Once cooled you can frost these with a vanilla or cream cheese frosting or drizzle with a powdered sugar and orange or lemon juice glaze or just eat them as is. I personally just like them as they are. They are plenty sweet for me. However, if you have family members who might be put off by the appearance of carrots in their cookie, a frosting would conceal that. LOL! But, I will add, I cannot discern a carrot taste or texture at all in these cookies. They're a mildly spiced, mildly sweet soft cookie.

By the way, these freeze really well. Just layer between sheets of waxed paper to prevent sticking.

yields:34 to 36 cookies, about 60-65 calories per cookie

Enjoy!

WinCo Grocery Haul: A Healthy Haul

I've mentioned before that I go to WinCo every other week. It had been slightly over 2 weeks since I last went. The store is way down the highway, using gas and precious time to go there and back. From the time I left the house to the time I finished putting everything away, 3 hours had elapsed for this shopping trip.

Anyway, this is pretty typical of what I buy twice a month, with variation for season (like stocking up on sale canned veggies or buying seasonal produce), variation for those months when I buy a large bag of brown rice or whole wheat or all-purpose flour or other stock-up item, and for when I've simply run out of an item, like this time vanilla flavoring.

I titled this a "healthy haul" because I've recently seen some really unhealthy looking grocery hauls, filled with some of the worst of processed foods. Those other hauls are also a lot more expensive than simply buying the basics and cooking from scratch. But we all know that. 

This isn't everything we eat in a two-week period, as we have lots of other foods on hand at all times. And I buy some of our food directly from vendors/ranchers, such as our beef, our greens/beet powders for smoothies, and soy milk powder. Our actual total cost to eat all meals and snacks each month is between $375.00 to $400.00 for a household of 4 adults, for one month (I said that twice, I know). And that includes those extra purchases through a rancher and other online vendors/manufacturers.

Here's the haul.

From left to right, front to back, this is what I bought:

large bulk bag of roasted peanuts

large bulk bag of raisins

2 pints of freshly ground peanut butter

2 12-oz cans tomato paste

6 cans corn

6 cans green beans

small bulk bag sea salt

small bulk bag iodized salt

2 lb bag powdered sugar

small bulk bag flax seed meal

vanilla flavoring

4 boxes frozen turkey breakfast sausage

2 1-lb bags frozen petite peas

1 small bulk bag peanut butter powder

1 small bulk bag onion powder

2 whole chickens

2 3-lb bags onions (weighed 6  5/8 lbs total)

2 dozen eggs

4 avocados (hard to see against dark countertop)

8 Fuji apples (3.89 lbs)

1 head of cabbage

2 lb bag tangerines

4 lb bag oranges

5 bananas

10 lb bag carrots

1 bundle celery

2 lb block cheddar cheese

4 lbs butter

2 gallons milk

Total spent -- $114.75

My one regret, I only bought one bag of oranges. I wish I'd bought two bags. I think we could do with a little more fresh fruit this time of year. 

What's missing here? Not a lot of meat this time. I still have canned tuna, beef, pepperoni for pizzas, more chicken, and more breakfast sausage at home. 

What else is missing? I didn't need much in the way of baking supplies, except the vanilla and powdered sugar. I have plenty of flour, granulated sugar, spices, molasses, yeast, baking powder, etc. 

You know what else is missing? Packaged snack foods. I just don't buy them. Chips, crackers, fruit rolls, cookies, pudding cups, other commercially-baked goodies, sodas, or individual servings of anything -- I bake our own snacks from what I've bought. Or else we snack on foods as they are, like a spoonful of peanut butter, a slice of cheese, handful of raisins, handful of peanuts, stove-top popcorn, piece of fruit or a raw veggie. When we have our weekly movie night, we eat homemade pizza while watching the movie. When we want something salty like fries, I make them in the oven using whole potatoes or sweet potatoes. It works out better for me and my wacky body, and it saves us a bundle of money each month. 

I also don't buy pre-made meals or parts of meals, like bagel bites, frozen pizza, chicken nuggets, frozen waffles, boxed cereal, lunch meat, bottled salad dressings. I cook from basics.

Maybe this sounds weird, but I don't like soda pop. My husband and I prefer coffee, tea, water, homemade lemonade, hot apple cider, or juice over soda pop. The exception is about once each summer we buy the ingredients for root beer floats. And if we have people over, we buy sparkling or mineral water. My daughters will occasionally buy themselves a soda when they're out doing things.

We eat well, here. We're healthy. We enjoy good food. 

How long will this last us? For most foods, 10 days to 3 weeks for 4 adults. Other foods, more than a month (vanilla flavoring, salt). I will need more bananas in a week. We use them in smoothies. I make a Walmart run for bananas every other week. I may pick up more tangerines or oranges when I get the bananas. I like for us to be able to have about 1 piece of fresh fruit each day (preferably a citrus fruit this time of year) and a serving of frozen fruit or dried fruit each day. I pick up other things that are Walmart specific for us at those times, too -- bathroom tissue, facial tissues, dish and laundry detergents, any OTC pain meds, chocolate chips, unsweetened baking chocolate bars, instant coffee -- all are great prices at Walmart. 

We will still have some tomato paste and canned veggies remaining at the end of 2 weeks. They've been on sale at WinCo the last month, so I pick up a few cans each time, hopefully to have enough to get us through winter. For us, canned corn and frozen corn feel interchangeable, so I buy the canned (less expensive). We prefer canned or fresh green beans over frozen. So when the garden is no longer producing fresh green beans for us, we opt for canned. Two large (12-oz) cans of tomato paste is enough for 4 family meals of spaghetti sauce or 8 family meals of pizza sauce or 4 to 6 family meals (depending on what else I add) of homemade tomato soup. Tomato paste also can be turned into BBQ sauce or ketchup with the addition of a couple of other ingredients.

The flax seed meal and peanut butter powder are for breakfast smoothies, and those 2 bags will last 2 weeks. I keep both fresh onions and onion powder on hand. Onion powder adds a great boost of flavor to sauces, gravies, and soups. But we also like to use fresh onions in dishes. Both are good and have their own best uses. The 2 bags of frozen peas are enough for 4 family meals. The butter was also on sale. I picked up 4 packages, which will last through mid-December, including lots of holiday cookie baking for the freezer. Ordinarily, we go through about 1 pound every couple of weeks. 

With the milk, as I open each jug I pour off about 1 1/2 quarts to freeze. When both of the jugs are gone, we use the frozen milk for the last part of the two-week period. The sea salt is one of our table salts (pink Himalayan is our other) and the iodized is our baking and cooking salt. These two bags will last a few months.

I like buying pre-bagged produce for one reason. I pick out several bags and weigh each one. The 2-lb bag of tangerines really weighed about 2  1/4 pounds. The onion bags both weighed well over the stated weight. Ditto on the oranges. With celery, I look for the freshest bundles that are also very full, since they're priced each. For apples this time, the individual apples were a much better deal than the bagged apples, and I got to select the very best of the ones that were there, no hidden bruised apples which would cause disappointment.

I shop with a list that I put together over the course of the two weeks since my last big shop. I don't deviate much from my list unless I suddenly remember an item that should have been on the list. I'm a get in and get out sort of gal when it comes to grocery shopping. WinCo is usually crowded, and that in itself motivates me to just finish up and get out.

I want to add, I don't mean to shame anyone who buys a different selection of food. However, I wanted to post one of our typical shopping stock-ups to show what exactly we buy and how I use it all. Could we spend more on groceries? Yes, we could. But that would cut into our savings goals, such as in-home care for late in life and providing some financial security for our children after we're gone.

Just for fun, here are some possible meals I could make with what I bought this week (plus a couple of staples from home). Each dinner meal has at least 2 servings of produce, a carb, and complete protein. Each breakfast has carbs, fruits/vegetables, and protein. Each lunch has at least 2 servings of produce, carbs, and protein. For snacks, I try to incorporate fruits/veggies into almost all of our snack foods, as well. Doing so lowers the total calories and refined sugar, plus it crams just a few more nutrients into each day.

14 dinner possibilities

1-roasted whole chicken (leaving lots of leftovers), gravy, bread/celery/onion stuffing (adding bread from scratch), canned green beans, apple wedges 

2-chicken (using leftover chicken) in Italian-style tomato paste-based sauce, brown rice (rice had at home already), frozen peas, cabbage slaw, tangerines

3-Brinner -- sausage, eggs, pancakes (from scratch), carrot-raisin salad, orange segments

4-tomato-celery (use tops of celery) soup, toasted cheese sandwiches (bread from scratch), apple wedges with peanut butter, scratch vanilla cornstarch pudding

5-chicken, bean, cheese, avocado burritos (beans and tortillas from scratch), salsa (homemade) on the side, caramelized onions, carrot sticks

6-burrito bowls -- canned corn, brown rice (from home ingredients), chicken, salsa (homemade in summer), avocados, cheese along with celery sticks and orange segments 

7-frittata -- eggs, greens from garden, onions, cheese, along with roasted potatoes (from garden), sautéed and spiced apples (from garden or the fresh ones I bought), steamed carrots

8-chicken in peanut sauce with veggies, using some of cooked chicken, peanut butter plus chopped peanuts to top, celery, onions, curry powder (from home), garlic (from garden), carrot slices, over brown rice (from home), with chutney on side (made last summer) and tangerines

9-a quick dinner -- scrambled eggs w/cheese, frozen peas, cooked pasta (from home) with butter and herbs (from garden), apple wedges and celery sticks

10-corn and sausage soufflé, using canned corn, sausage and eggs, baked potatoes (from garden or bag I already have), Cole slaw, fruit cup of orange, apple, banana (mixed fruit cup is a good side/dessert to plan for end of shopping period, when down to just singles of each fruit)

11-chicken in BBQ sauce (made with leftover chicken, tomato paste and other ingredients), oven-fries (potatoes from garden or from bag already have at home), oven-roasted carrot sticks, canned green beans

12-fried rice with egg, cabbage, carrot, peas, onions, chopped peanuts plus rice, soy sauce and garlic (from home/garden), tangerines

13-scratch pizza (all but tomato paste from other purchases or garden), cabbage plate vegetable dish (retro 50s recipe using carrots, cabbage, onions, celery), fresh fruit or stewed prunes (garden) or sautéed apples (garden)

14-Spanish beans and rice (beans, rice from other purchases, tomato sauce based on tomato paste and spices, plus caramelized onions), carrot-apple-cabbage-raisin slaw in mayo (from home) dressing

bonus dinner possibility -- tuna melts (canned tuna, bread, mayo from home supplies, celery and cheese from haul), carrot sticks, frozen peas

5+ breakfast possibilities (we repeat breakfast ideas more than dinner)

daughter's favorite -- overnight oats (oats and cinnamon from home, with milk and raisins) OR homemade granola (oats, sugar, spices from home, smidge butter and peanut butter from haul) with milk, topped with chopped apple 

my favorite -- breakfast smoothies, using peanut butter powder for protein, bananas, leftover steamed carrots, flax seed meal, blackberries (from garden), puréed pumpkin (from garden or bought in Oct), greens powder (had at home), beet powder (had at home), smidge of peanut butter or avocado for fats with or without toast or sausage on the side

husband's favorite -- sausage, toast (from scratch) with jam (made last summer), milk, orange

pancakes or French toast (from scratch), spiced apple topping, boiled eggs or glass of milk for additional protein OR scratch apple-carrot-raisin muffins (baking staples from home) and a boiled egg for a take and go breakfast

baked rice pudding (rice, sugar, spices/flavorings from home, eggs, raisins, and milk from grocery haul)

5+ lunch possibilities (we repeat lunch ideas more than dinner)

cheese or egg salad or peanut butter or chicken salad sandwiches (bread from scratch, mayo from home), celery sticks, carrot sticks, fruit

chicken and vegetable (carrots, celery, peas, green beans, onions) soup from scratch (adding potatoes from garden, noodles, barley, quinoa, or rice from home for carb), fruit, cookies (from ingredients at home already)

curried peanut butter and pumpkin soup, biscuits (scratch) and fruit on side

snacky lunch -- raisins, peanuts, cheese slices, apple wedges, celery sticks, carrot sticks, bread (from scratch) and butter 

salad lunch -- enhanced slaw-type salad with shredded cabbage, grated carrots, chopped peanuts, cubed cheese, raisins, apple chunks, cooked garbanzo beans (from home), mayo (from home), vinegar (from home), salt, with toast (scratch) on side

snacks using what I bought

muffins -- variation possibilities from this haul only: 1) apple, 2) carrot, 3) raisin, 4) peanut butter, 5) whole orange, 6) banana, and 7) corny corn

cookies and snack cakes -- oatmeal raisin drop cookies, carrot-spice drop cookies, peanut butter cookies, apple-spice snack cake, carrot snack cake

peanut butter-raisin protein balls (using powdered milk and honey from home) 

no-bake shredded carrot-peanut butter-rolled oat-honey energy balls

for a candy treat -- chocolate covered raisin clusters, about 1/4 cup chocolate chips, melted and mixed with a little coconut oil and a large handful of raisins. Could also be done with peanuts for peanut clusters.

plain raisins, plain peanuts, cheese cubes, celery sticks, carrot sticks, fresh fruit

I'm not saying we will definitely be having these meals and snacks in the next couple of weeks, as we have lots of other foods in the freezers, pantry, and fridge that we can draw from. These were just a handful of suggested meals I could make, based on this shopping trip. The foods from my haul that don't get eaten before I shop again will simply be rolled over into use the following shopping period.

So that's what a healthy haul from WinCo, on a limited budget, looks like for my family and how it all winds up in our meals.

Cheap & Cheerful Suppers Plus Another Pumpkin Recipe

This is Tuesday's dinner with the pumpkin soufflé. The soufflé isn't a super fluffy dish, but the egg does hold it all together and makes it lighter than straight pumpkin.

Friday (daughter made dinner)
scratch pepperoni pizza
roasted pumpkin*
frozen peas

Saturday (cook-out around the fire ring -- fun time!)
hot dogs
homemade buns, using part of the dough I'd made for a loaf of French bread this day

Swiss chard* sautéed in bacon fat
steamed carrots
s'mores

Sunday
bean and cheese burritos in homemade flour tortillas, beans cooked from dried
cabbage and nasturtium leaf* slaw
roasted pumpkin cubes*
leftover Halloween cookies

Monday
roasted chicken with gravy
bread, celery*, and sage* dressing, using chicken stock from freezer to moisten
sweet potato oven fries, roasted in beef fat
sautéed beet greens*, using some of the chicken fat from the roast chicken
pecan pie (courtesy of my daughters)

Tuesday
leftover chicken heated in salsa with avocado, tomato*, cilantro* (last red tomato from garden, a couple of yellow tomatoes left now)
brown rice
pumpkin* soufflé
stewed prunes*

Wednesday (daughter made dinner)

chicken and vegetable soup (vegetables -- celery*, onion, purple potatoes*, garlic*, carrots, frozen peas, herbs*)

chocolate chip muffins

Thursday

Shepherd's Pie, using beef,  celery*, carrot, carrot leaves*, beet greens*, onions*, garlic*, nasturtium leaves*, herbs* , and beef stock from freezer, all under a mashed potato topping. (I used the potato peels to make oven-roasted potato peels as a snack this afternoon. Yum!)

fig-applesauce* on the side

*denote garden produce

Pumpkin Soufflé

When I need an orange vegetable side dish, and what I have is pumpkin puree (and I want this to be a "fork-able" dish), I turn it into a soufflé of sorts.

Here's how I make it:

1 pint pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
about 1/4 teaspoon combined cinnamon and nutmeg
pat of butter to top casserole

Butter a small baking dish (I use a couple of small white Corningware round bakers).

Beat egg well with a fork in a medium bowl. Beat in the pumpkin, sugar, salt, and spices. Pour into the prepared baking dish and top with the butter pat.

Bake at 350 to 375 degrees F, whatever I need for the other foods I'm baking. If not baking anything else, I bake this at 350 degrees F. Total baking time -- about 20-25 minutes. A knife inserted in center will come out clean.

I use 2 of these Corningware bakers
for this recipe.
5 1/2 inches at opening and 2 inches tall

Notes

If what you're accustomed to for chicken soup comes from a can, cooking it at home adds a seriously amazing aroma to the kitchen. On Thursday I simmered the carcass from our most recent roasted whole chicken. The house smelled delicious all day. As we had chicken soup on Wednesday, I chose to freeze the resulting chicken stock with meat for making a chicken and vegetable soup at some future moment.

You may have noticed that there have been fewer garden veggies and more store bought ones in our meals the last couple of weeks. Earlier this week I started a batch of lentil sprouts, our first for this season. Lentil sprouts add bulk to our winter salads and sandwiches for just pennies.

Grocery shopping

I went to Walmart last Friday and picked up a couple of things, a bunch of bananas, a 3 lb bag of sweet potatoes, and a pound of lean grass fed ground beef. I spent $11.06, also my total for the month. (I also picked up cleaning supplies, as we were out of liquid dish detergent.) I'll be going to WinCo in the next couple of days and do a big stock-up then. My spending total will jump from that.

What was the best meal you had this week?

Your Best Hosting the Holidays Tips

Okay, I was freaking out yesterday, thinking I couldn't do all I needed to do for Thanksgiving, then Christmas Eve, then Christmas Day, then New Year's. There's the cooking, cleaning, planning games, and generally being a good host.

Then I remembered that I have done these holidays every year, and I have managed because I plan it all out and do some work in advance.

So I thought I'd share a tip, the ask for your input.

My Tip

For hosting and cooking for a big holiday meal. . .

Cook in advance, in particular make a freezer-stable pie pastry in advance and store in the freezer. I made this recipe this morning and froze it in 5 portions. They thaw overnight in the fridge before I need to bake the pie. For Thanksgiving this year, I'll be making 1 single-crust pie and 1 double-crust pie, using 3 of the 5 portions of this dough. I'll be using the other 2 dough portions in a sweet and savory meat pie for New Year's Eve. (There's a fun name for this meat pie -- Medieval Game Pie.)

Fool-Proof Pie Pastry (enough for 5 single crusts)

4 cups flour (if you want to use some whole grain, you can use 1 cup whole wheat + 3 cups white flour)
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1  3/4 cups shortening
1 large egg
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon vinegar

In a large bowl, stir flour, salt and sugar together.  Cut in shortening.  

In a small bowl or the measuring cup from the shortening, beat the egg with a fork then stir in water and vinegar. Pour over the flour mixture and mix until dough comes together. Chill for 30 minutes. 

Divide into 5 portions and shape each into a flat, round patty. Wrap each in plastic wrap.

This dough can handle extra flour, if needed, for rolling. Extra flour and handling will not toughen the baked product. 

The dough keeps, refrigerated, for 3-5 days, or frozen for several months. Thaw completely before rolling out.

Your turn -- tell us your best tip for hosting and cooking for a big holiday. Do you play any games after Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years dinner? Do you prepare foods in advance? Any that can be frozen? Feel free to provide links to recipes or the recipes, themselves in the comments.

Off-Season Garden Fruit

We have 2 fresh apples and 4 fresh pears left of our fresh fruit harvest from this season's trees. But that doesn't mean that we're out of homegrown fruit. 

I still have oodles of apple and crabapple sauce, and lots of apple chunks (from bruised apples) and Asian pear chunks (from our neighbor's fallen tree branches). I also have home-dried prunes, home-dried apple slices (from early apples that were softening), home-dried Asian pear slices, and homemade fruit leather rolls.

The applesauce and crabapple sauce are great to have on hand. However, for those who go off to work during the day, they make terrible portable food, lacking watertight food containers. We do buy some fresh fruit this time of year, tangerines, oranges, bananas, and some apples. As a supplement to those purchases, it's time to start using the dried fruit I made this summer.

This week I brought out some of the fruit leather rolls (I made 120 total). I also made little bags of dried fruit. Each of these bags has the equivalent of half an apple and 5 small plums, about a serving of fruit at lunch.

When we run out of the fruit rolls, I will make more batches, using the frozen apple and crabapple sauces.

By processing a lot of our tree fruit into dried slices/halves or into leather, I ensure that we will have garden fruit when the fresh fruit has been exhausted, stretching our grocery budget during the tough late fall and winter months.

Appreciating the Very Imperfect Garden Vegetables

When we shop in the produce section of the grocery store, we find attractive fruits and vegetables. Some leafy greens may have crushed leaves where they were bundled and banded to prevent tearing. But overall, the produce looks pretty good. We expect it to look pretty good. Would you buy a tomato that obviously had a touch of blossom end rot? Or a zucchini that was lopsided, bulging significantly more at one end than the other? Or an apple that had multiple blemishes?

This abundance of beautiful fruits and vegetables, all lined up in rows and layers at the market, is really not like what most folks ate on a daily basis before the 20th century. The introduction of pesticides, improved seeds, and the sorting out of imperfect produce for use in canned products has led us all to believe that everyone's produce should look consistent in size and shape, as well as be on the larger side. 

Before the mid-1800s, most Americans kept kitchen gardens. And if you keep a vegetable garden today, you know that an abundance of perfect produce simply isn't the case. My own garden vegetables look so imperfect that we often joke about who gets to eat more of the garden, us or the combined pests.

In case you've ever felt frustrated by your own garden's problems, I wanted to show you what our beet leaves look like.

Here are some of the leaves that I harvested for tonight. The very worst of the leaves weren't picked, as they were beginning to yellow and some looked a little diseased, common for this late in the season. But I was able to harvest a big bowlful to sauté to go with our meal. This is the third of such harvests. I only have about 10 beets growing in this small autumn patch. I planted a trough planter with beets after I had harvested the earlier vegetables (turnips I think) in early July. So I wasn't expecting a huge beet harvest, but we make the most of what we get.

These leaves have clearly been a meal or two for slugs. I wash the leaves and just ignore the bite holes. I figure that this is just a part of keeping an organic garden. You get chew holes or sometimes have to pick off crawly, slimy critters. But we still get our share of the food.

And this is what I think the garden experience used to be for most folks up until the mid-1900s. By the 1950s, there were several strong and effective pesticides available to home gardeners. No one really knew the hazards of these products at the time, so most consumers had  a positive view of them. It was "progress." We've now come full-circle. Most home gardeners don't want to use a lot of pesticides, fungicides, or herbicides on their produce. Part of the reason I personally keep a kitchen garden is so that I can provide chemical-free fruits and vegetables for my family. And we accept that bugs and slugs will ruin the perfect look that the grocery store displays.

I'm showing you some of our imperfect produce today for a couple of reasons. 1) so if you have a garden and wind up with lots of imperfect fruits and vegetables, at least you know that you're not alone. And 2) when I post my weekly menus and identify what comes from the garden, you don't have a mental picture of a refrigerator full of a blemish-free and perfectly uniform abundance. 

In place of grocery store perfection, I and my family appreciate home-grown flavor over appearance, health benefits of eating fresh and organic, and taking a step towards greater self-sufficiency in procuring some of our food.