I know that folks may have lots of emotions and thoughts about today’s political events. I’m going to ask that we keep all comments limited to Pantry Challenge/grocery/food talk and not discuss politics. Thanks.
Alrighty, so today I spent the bulk of the day rearranging the kitchen. It had developed some clutter corners since the holidays that I could stand no longer. Sorry, no before and after pics; let’s just say I was busy living life. 😉
Refrigeration…
Things are working well with the new fridge in the kitchen and a smaller second fridge in the garage. The Samsung check came this week; the funds should be cleared tomorrow.
We spent $3000 on the two refrigerators and an additional $290 on service calls. That’s a total of $3290 since September spent on refrigeration.
Samsung refunded $2565, the purchase price of the faulty fridge that we bought it in 2016. When all is said and done, I’ve got many more gray hairs and two brand new refrigerators for an extra $725 out of pocket.
It feels like a wash, but I’m grateful to have it behind me.
Coffee, coffee
Just prior to the start of the Pantry Challenge, Bryan requested that I buy Peets coffee instead of Starbucks. Over the months of brewing more coffee at home, he realized how much he prefers Peets.
We always knew this, but I think he’s started to really notice the difference.
When he submitted his request to management 😉 I had just stocked up on Starbucks, of course, and was hoping to get through January with that and the Peets Nespresso capsules we had.
However, I know from past experience never to pass up a January coffee sale. I have done so in past Pantry Challenges and regretted it. I know there will always be a good sale in January — and then there will be a lull.
So, when I saw that Ralphs put Peets on digital deal this week, I loaded that coupon to my app and got myself to the store on the first day. I’ve also learned that you don’t wait until later in the Peets sale as all the good flavors (Major D, Big Bang, and decaf Major D) will be gone.
- Reg price $9.99-12.99
- Sale price $5.99
- Coupon price $4.99, limit 5
I got seven. Felt weird to buy some without coupon but it’s still a good price, but we’ll be set through the lull.
Since I don’t plan on going back to Ralphs this week, I got the produce items that were also on sale, spending $46 total. That brings our monthly total so far to $282. Seeing as the month is almost half over and we’ve got plenty of milk and produce, I think we’re on track.
Our Meals for Day 13
Breakfast – Oats for some, Raspberry Baked Oatmeal and Sausage Egg Hash Brown Casserole for others. I had my Blueberries, Yogurt, and Greek Yogurt With Muesli.
Lunch – CFA boys were gone. Bryan had his burritos. Kids at home had a combination of leftovers, veggies, and sandwiches. I tossed leftover cooked veggies onto a salad with feta and heated the last of my goat cheese and leek egg bake.
Dinner – It was a tale of two soups. I made Chunky Potato Soup with Bacon & Tarragon as well as a Tomato Soup. I started both out as vegan so my daughter could choose what she wanted. She chose Tomato. I added cream, cheese, bacon, and scallions to mine. It was so good. Recipe coming soon!
I also thawed another package of Hawaiian rolls that I bought on clearance earlier in the month.
Overall, soup night was a success.
Lily R. says
Day 13
Breakfast: more homemade bagels. We topped them with vegetable cream cheese and lox today.
Lunch: sofrito lentils and spinach over quinoa.
Dinner: I made halal style chicken and rice with white sauce. Not sure if everyone will know what this is but it’s very popular where I live!
Snacks today were pears and chocolate babka.
Maureen says
I finally got fed up with my kitchen and scrubbed it top to bottom. My MIL got us an air fryer for Christmas, so I made room on the counter for it (but still need to get it set up). Then, I took 2 minutes to tidy up the pantry and found 6 open boxes of crackers. ?!?! Those are now all sitting on the counter to be eaten or tossed (I’m guessing some are stale, since I’m the only one in house that can consistently properly seal an open bag) in the next day or two. I had a healthy eating day and lunch was mostly leftovers for all. But, we now have cupcakes in the house (DD13 had baking club after school and they were decorating cupcakes with piping bags). And it was supposed to be leftovers/clean out the fridge for dinner, but everyone except me ended up with fast food for all or part of their dinner. So, hoping to do a bit of extra prep to keep the coming days on track.
Lily R. says
Your comment made me laugh since I just cleaned up my pantry and found 3 open boxes of crackers also! Also, where was baking club when I was in school.
Carol B. says
Regular breakfast. Clementine.
Lunch: Hot and sour soup. I put some greens in. Mistake, oh well. Tapioca pudding.
Supper: pork chops ( freezer), baked potato, baked winter squash. Salad.
Tasty says
Fruit,yogurt and muffin for both of us. Lunch was leftovers – turkey soup for me and pulled pork for hubby. Supper was spaghetti meatballs and salad, using pasta and home made sauce from the pantry and meatballs from the freezer. Enough sauce and meatballs for another meal !
Cindy says
Breakfast was steele cut oats, mandarin orange, kiwi and coffee or tea for us
Lunch for me was another snacky one – small pepper with cream cheese with EBS sprinkled on top along with cucumber, salami and mozzarella stick. Hubby had tomato basil soup and bread.
Breakfast for dinner – pancakes, turkey sausage and mixed fruit salad of blueberries, mandarin orange, kiwi, pineapple and grapes.
Leslie T says
I have two open containers of Steel Cut Oats and am looking for ways to use them up besides just making oatmeal. Anyone have ideas or recipes?
Lily R. says
If you check Pinterest there are steel cut oats cookies (nice crunch), bars, breads, etc. Hope this helps!
Melinda says
One of my favorite baked oatmeal recipes uses steel cut oats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMx6Aw6i1jQ
Pat says
Day 13 breakfast and lunch were the usual.
Dinner was guys choice planned takeout. This week my husband got Ming beef for us to share-neither of us were fans.
Stopped at the store by my house yesterday to get the fruit we needed. Man pears and golden delicious apples are expensive this time of year. I got 4 of each, bananas and 32oz of vanilla yogurt marked down to .90. Total was $7.65 and $41.60 for the month.
Sarah says
I’m so jealous of everyone hitting good sales. Groceries are scarce here so things are often sold out vs on clearance.
B: coffee w/ cream
L: bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches on GF bagels (freezer)
D: jalapeño cheddar brats, brown rice, and sautéed spinach w/ garlic, hot pepper, and lemon.
S: GF cookies and milk
Apparently I had a lot of snacks stock piled. After we get though them we are going low carb again. I can’t keep eating snacks every night! I also find a lot of the pantry challenge meals to be carb heavy since that’s what it seems I stock pile!
Melinda says
My small town rarely has good grocery deals either. It’s the only downside to living rurally . . . I love everything else about our small town.
Melinda says
Breakfast: We ate Baked Oatmeal for breakfast. It was the second day in a row . . . but my kids love it and requested it again so I said yes.
For lunch and dinner, we ate leftovers. It was nice to take a day off from cooking.
I mixed up some sourdough bread as well so that we would have some for the next few days. One of my daughters has requested sandwiches for lunch so we will be doing that in the next day or two.
Karen J says
We had a big huge windstorm Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning knocking out our (and 500,000 others!) electricity so breakfast was yogurt and granola. My wonderful husband got the camp stove going in the garage so we had coffee in the french press. Lunch was crackers and apples with peanut butter. By dinner time our power had returned so we had pesto fettuccini with shrimp and broccoli, french bread, and green salad. I have a new appreciation for electricity, which I usually just take for granted. Being a pioneer woman was fun for a little while, but I really like lights and heat.
A while back we switched to Costco Columbian dark roast (in a good sized can) for our coffee. Prior to the pandemic we didn’t make coffee at home that much as we often had breakfast out. Now that we are home all the time, we are going through much more coffee than before. The Costco coffee has been a less expensive option for us and it tastes okay.
Lynn from NC Outer Banks says
Karen,
Yes, electricity is a wonderful thing. Between hurricanes here resulting in days without power and random power losses (out one time for 8 hours when a boat dragging an anchor disrupted the main cable to the island 🙁 we broke down and installed an automatic generator. Whenever we would go out of town, I worried that the power might go out and we’d lose food in our freezer. The generator definitely has provided peace of mind. I’m glad your electricity was restored before too long!
Lynn from NC Outer Banks says
1/13/21
B: cottage cheese with apple slices, coffee
L: leftover chili and rice, DH: turkey salad sandwich, soup
D: pork roast with gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans and ambrosia (orange, apple, mango, pom arils, cherries, coconut)
I don’t think I ever realized that January is a good time for coffee sales. I’ll have to watch for them. We were given some coffee for Christmas but will be needing some before too much longer.
Kim says
Ooh, ambrosia salad brings back memories! I may have to make some tomorrow with the random leftover fruit pieces that end up in the fridge!
Jennifer says
We will have to try the Peet’s coffee, we usually drink Starbucks since my dd works there and gets a free pound a week. But she just went back to college and we won’t be getting the free coffee for awhile.
B – dd made almond poppyseed muffins yesterday so most of us had that.
L – I forced myself to make a salad which I don’t usually take to work because I am slow at eating and that takes forever. BUT the lettuce was going bad so I made it anyway. Then I had an extra short lunch and barely got it down. Dh took the leftovers.
D – I was going to make meatballs but my meat wasn’t thawed. So I made sun dried tomato alfredo pasta and sliced up a pepper. We will have meatballs tomorrow.
Kim says
B- oatmeal
L- sandwiches to school for the kids with apples and lo brownies; LO for hubby and me
A little miscommunication at my house and the hubby took ground turkey out of the freezer instead of the chicken I planned for. So…used up a sloppy joe mix from the pantry and sweet potato fries in the freezer and dinner is done! It isn’t always bad to have some random extras around :). Took out the chicken for tomorrow!
Jodi says
Breakfast was usual: cereal for kids; bagel, yogurt and tea for hubs; protein drink and coffee for me.
Lunch:
I had leftovers of some sort. I can’t remember now!
Oldest boys had yet more pizza rolls.
Youngest ate at school. Our district is serving free breakfast and lunch this year.
Dinner: It is usually burgers and fries night, and I was so so busy with work and life i was sorely tempted to just hit drive through. especially since i had to get dinner on the table before taking one kid to tutoring. But i sucked it up, defrosted ground beef in the micro, and we ate at home. Win!
I haven’t seen much of a savings but am using things up here and there. I generally have one budget for food and household stuff, and we had to buy just about everything from paper goods, trash bags, dish soap, etc. this month which is skewing my view. I am thinking about switching the game plan to track food separately for a better picture of what we are spending>