It’s been a hot minute since I posted on what we have spent on groceries each week. I got a little burned out keeping track of my weekly purchases and had some health issues this summer that slowed me down.
On average, I have been spending around $70 each week on groceries this summer. I think that’s pretty great! I found a new app to help me use the food items in my pantry and freezer more efficiently that I want to share with you. It’s called SuperCook and it can be downloaded for free through the app store. I am sure there are many apps that offer the same experience as SuperCook but so far, it’s the only one I have tried, and I love it!
What the app offers is a way to plug in all of the food you have on hand in your house (pantry, freezer, fridge etc.) and after completing that it will spit out recipes for dishes you can cook or bake based on the ingredients you have on hand.
I usually grocery shop on Sundays and I was about to go out shopping on such a Sunday a few weeks ago, when I came across this app and let me tell you I didn’t grocery shop that week at all. We all have so much food in our homes that we don’t even realize. I had plenty of chicken frozen in the freezer so with the help of the app I made multiple fabulous dishes and I didn’t have to go to the grocery store for a thing!
From what I can tell the app must search the entire internet for you because it came up with over 80,000 recipes I could cook/bake with the ingredients I had on hand. Totally overwhelming at first but you can search by key ingredient, meal type, cuisine, and more to filter down the selection of recipes.
Here are a few of the recipes I have tried so far using the SuperCook app:
Chicken Bacon KabobsBruschetta Chicken BreastsA soup I made with the Leftover Chicken and BruschettaThis recipe was a total keeper
Honestly, I would make any and all of these recipes again! Really, really good. I was surprised by the chicken and cabbage recipe. I needed to use our cabbage and didn’t know of another use besides the normal coleslaw and stuffed cabbage rolls, etc.
I don’t know about you but the recipes I try from something delicious I see on Instagram 9 times out of 10 doesn’t work. They make everything look great but logistically these recipes don’t work for me. Kind of disappointing and costly!
I hope you give SuperCook or another recipe app a try. It really reduces food waste and saves you money! If you try this app let me know how you make out. I would love to know! -MM
Happy Sunday! I managed to stitch a few hundred more stitches over the past 3 weeks, so not too shabby. Garden/canning responsibilities have been taking most of my time right now.
Here is where I left off last update:
And here is where I am now.
I know it looks like I am near a finish, but…there are still a grouping of leaves and another bud to stitch at the top, so I would say I am about 85% done.
This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, who’s link is below. We greatly appreciate her keeping all of us on track.
Now, I am off to visit the other stitchers in this group to see the delightful projects they are working on. See you again in three weeks!
Each year I happily and thankfully harvest an abundance of produce from our victory garden and coming up with ways not to waste any of that goodness is always a fun challenge for me.
We love stuffed peppers but let’s face it they are a lot of work and take some time to cook. I have heard of many ways to prepare stuffed peppers but I prefer them slow cooked in sauce. The flavor of the pepper infuses the sauce and the fresh basil…oh my! So good.
Stuffed peppers are on my yearly list to prep in bulk and freeze for the winter. I stuff the peppers and freeze them whole and raw. Yes, I use rice and yes I prefer them whole but they can also be stuffed with the peppers cut in half and frozen first on a tray then bagged once frozen for long term storage.
This post isn’t about a particular stuffed pepper recipe, but more a method and a way to be more efficient and less wasteful with food production and it saves money!
I like to order a bulk amount of ground beef ahead of time from my local grocer, when I know I want to do multiple food prep projects using beef.
Just get your beef, wash and core your sweet peppers, cook your rice if that is what you are using and any other ingredients like eggs, milk, garlic, breadcrumbs and herbs ready for assembly.
Mix together all of the meat stuffing ingredients and pack it into the cored peppers. Yes, I do it all raw and pop the stuffed peppers into a heavy duty freezer bag, mark with contents and date and freeze.
When I want stuffed peppers I simply plop 4 or 5 frozen peppers into my hot spaghetti sauce and let them cook for a few hours. Seriously that’s it. No need to unfreeze ahead of time.
If you prefer prepping half peppers instead of whole, it’s the same process but I would freeze them first on a baking sheet before putting them in a plastic freezer bag for long term storage. Some people bake their stuffed peppers in the oven instead of cooking them in sauce but I would still prep them the same as well.
Prepping stuffed peppers is so satisfying. Especially when all you have to do to use them is plop them in a pot of sauce or bake them in the oven. Easy peasy!
Next up… I have a whole list of food prep goals for the winter. Applesauce and grape jelly are on that list. Until next time! -MM
Happy Sunday! It’s been three weeks since our last update, and considering how busy I have been, I am happy with the progress I made on Joyce’s Rose.
Here is where I left off last time
And here is where I am now.
At this point, I am stitching any part of the project that I like just to keep myself motivated.
This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, who’s link is below. We greatly appreciate her keeping all of us on track.
Now, I am off to visit the other stitchers in this group to see the delightful projects they are working on. Come join me! It’s so much fun to see their progress.
The past 6 weeks have been a hurry up and wait situation. Between baking every weekend and it being too cold, then too hot, I have to admit I am a bit behind!
The last two weeks have been great though. I have committed to spending at least an hour a day in the garden, and I have made a lot of forward progress.
I got over 120 onions planted yesterday.
So far I have planted shelling peas and snap peas, the garlic from last fall is huge, purple and orange cauliflower, eggplant, cabbage, big beef tomatoes, Lunchbox peppers, aspabroc, basil, red onion, celery, potatoes, yellow squash, spinach, Swiss chard, and two kinds of lettuce. Whew! That’s more than I thought!
I planted the rest of the potatoes First batch is looking healthy
The apricot trees actually have apricots on them, the strawberries have strawberries on them, the rhubarb is huge, the cherries, red raspberries and peaches all are doing pretty well.
The first round of peas are blooming and the second round is growing like a weed.
I got the tiller guy over to get the large garden plot ready for us and have worked to get it fenced in and weed barrier down. This is the first year with the weed barrier and I am excited to see how everything does. I just do not have time to weed a garden that size.
Four of the raised beds needed to be pulled up because of rot, and to be honest, as I take them up, I think I am going to rework them. I might even permanently get rid of them. I feel like there is a lot of wasted space in that area of the garden that could be used more effectively. We’ll see, though.
I am also working on creating a kitchen garden in the side yard behind my pallet picket fence. Lots to work on, but if I keep at doing an hour a day, I should do pretty well!
By the way, that bin of potatoes grew a lot of beautiful greenery but not much to speak of for potatoes, so I won’t do that again. 😉
That’s it for now. It’s going to be a beautiful week weatherwise, so I will have more to share next time. -MM
Since the beginning of the year, I have been busy every weekend, but one with orders. Here are some of the projects I have worked on 😉
I had two very special cakes I did in this round. One was for a 60th anniversary, and one was for a wedding at our church for an 80+ year old couple that found love again with each other after the passing of their spouses. It was the sweetest thing!
The other fun cake I had was a camo cake I made for a turkey hunter that was celebrating his 80th birthday with the guys. I am not big on dark colored dyes so I did warn them not to be alarmed when they all had black and green teeth and as we all know what goes in has to come out lol! Oh, You get what I mean. Here is the step by step below.
Just a regular double layer 10″ cakeFrosted and ready to rockFirst the mustard yellow detailingThen I added the hunter greenThen the brownAfter all the layers dried, I smoothed it all down – see note belowI piped on the turkey silhouette Last the writing in white
So far I have 7 graduation orders and lots of other smaller projects coming up. Hope you enjoyed all of these fun designs! 🙂 -MM
I haven’t posted a grocery update, garden update or debt update in a while.
A few weeks ago when I was grocery shopping I had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to buy what I wanted without having to think about the price. Frustration for the cost of food and the fact that I was sick of trying to control our grocery spending got the better of me so I really haven’t shopped much in the last two weeks. I have slid into just buying what I need at the time and not having a plan for the week.
If I go back to posting about our grocery and meal habits I will need to change some things up. Originally I would post immediately after shopping with a cost for what I purchased and my plan for the week for meals. Then I switched and posted after the week was over about what I actually made and a total for the end of the week’s grocery costs. I have found that not having a plan for meals going into the week has created more stress. So if I start posting about groceries again I will go back to my original posting style. Now the question is does anyone really want to read about what we eat and how much money we spend? Having a plan for our meals greatly relieves me so that is what I am working on at the moment. And trying new recipes!
I really want to try this!
Garden updates have just gotten away from me. I have been so busy with work and bakery orders that I have barely had time to work outside let alone clean my house some weeks lol! But I have gotten a lot done in the garden and I am finally getting the time I need to work outside.
Debt updates. This is a big frustration for me. Really big actually. Getting rid of our debt has been my top priority for over 12 years! We did not get into debt because of frivolous spending. Yes, there are times in everyone’s worlds where we spend on something we really don’t need but that’s just life. No, we got into out debt from divorces, medical, business and general home and car maintenance. We never took fancy vacations or bought tons of clothes or anything like that. We, like many people have gotten into debt just from living.
I worked really hard to get our one credit card down to $3000 from $8000 but again life happened and it’s right back up to $7000. It’s frustrating for sure but everything that has been put on that card (and diligently paid off) has just been life. We have a wedding coming up for our son, we needed a new car, and our 15 year old dishwasher finally called it quits, and one of the most important purchases was a weeks road trip for Scott and I. In the 15 years we have been together we have never taken a road trip together, just the two of us. So in my mind that trip was a need not a want. We had a blast too!
Scott and I have decided together to back away from many of our community endeavors. We just want to spend more time doing what we need to do for our family, friends, home and church. If we put our energies into these things as much as we have our community groups just imagine what we can do! And boy does our house need some TLC!
We got our basement windows replaced!
I have also put my Etsy shop on vacation mode for the summer. EEEks! That’s a bit scary for me but I am already loving the extra time to work in the garden.
Ok, I am digressing a bit. Grocery posts: Are you still interested in my grocery habits? Gardening posts: I want to post more often and not in weekly form, kind of like what I do on Instagram. Debt posts: I would like to post more in diary form where I just post when I have something to say about it. What do you think?
I would also like to post about the cakes I have been making, I’ll always post about my stitching projects every three weeks, I would love to post about fellow veggie gardeners so if you know one or are one and would like me to write about you please message me.
I’ll do my best to post. Please be patient with me as we put our energies into home life. -MM
Join Mavis Butterfield for vegetable gardening and canning tips, easy recipes, and saving money strategies (Rug hooking, too!). Simple living at its best!
The Professional Domestic 