The Professional Domestic

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Week 17-18 of 52

Week 17 grocery shopping was interesting! Our local Save-A-Lot has a stamp program right now where if you fill a book with 50 stamps you get an amount off your next order. If you fill one book it is $10 off your next order of $25, fill two books and it’s $25 off of $50 and if you fill three stamp books it is $50 off a $100 order or more. With the help of my mom and a friend and my own shopping there I was able to fill three books for $50 off!

There was a problem with that though. I didn’t know how much or what to buy. Seriously it was quite the dilemma. I walked in the store and realized $100 was a lot to spend at a store like Save-A-Lot and I didn’t feel like using a calculator to keep track of what I was buying. So I sucked it up and just started throwing stuff in the cart that looked good, looked useful or just plain sounded good to eat. It was actually liberating. No list, nothing in mind, just pure instant gratification. I got to the checkout and the cashier took one look at my cart and said to me. Mary Margaret I have never seen you buy so much! I know right?!

My total came to $149.49. Eeeeks! But after the $50 off it was only $99.49 amazing! And I got some really fun stuff and filled my pantry.

Here is what I bought at Save-A-Lot:

I haven’t purchased drumsticks ice cream cones in a long time because at over $7 a pop they are super expensive, but hey, why not splurge!

I also spent $28.25 at the Marketplace so total week 17 was $127.74.

Week 18 I hardly bought a thing because I had so much left over from Week 17! I bought creamer, a box of shell pasta, a rotisserie chicken, a big pack of strawberries and a container of Greek olives for a total of $27.47

So here is what we ate the last two weeks:

There were other meals we had that I didn’t get a photo of, but you get the idea.

Total spent on groceries week 17: $127.74

Total spent on groceries week 18: $27.47

Total for April: $438.26

Total so far for May: $27.47

Grand total for the year $2020.03

Whew! That was a lot. Let’s see how week 19 plays out. Have a great week! -MM

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Week 15-16 of 52

Sorry for the late updates! The last two weeks have been a blur but I found some great after Easter deals!

Week 15 I spent $76.44 and got some unusual ingredients because I wanted to try a new recipe I saw on Instagram and we wanted to cook on the grill for the first time this season so a lot of meat was purchased.

Here are some of the meals we ate in Week 15:

Finger food plate for the car ride to Easter Dinner

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of the massive amount of grilled meat we ate all week. We grilled hot dogs, hamburgers, Italian sausages and chicken and ate it all week. Now that’s my kind of cooking!

The new recipe I tried was the cabbage rolls. It wasn’t a complete flop. We liked it but I will have to try it again sometime because the Napa cabbage I bought had leaves that were just too small to roll and I think I should blanche them a little longer, they were kind of chewy. But hey, they had great flavor!

For week 16, I took advantage of a lot of after Easter sales and there was a one day sale at our store so I really stocked up!

I spent $142.80. That’s a lot for me but it was worth it!

Here are some of the deals I got:

Whole boneless pork loin $21.41
Boneless chuck roast $17.32
2 bags raw shrimp 31/40 ct $5.99 ea.
3 Sugardale bacon $3.99 ea.
2 port tenderloin $5.60 and $6.19
Grape tomatoes $2.50
Spiral sliced ham, originally $40.66 on sale for $15.18!!

Here are a few of the things we ate in week 16:

Total spent on groceries week 15: $76.44

Total spent on groceries week 16: $142.80

Total for April: $310.52
Grand total for the year $1,554.30

Have a great week! -MM

Ripley Victory Garden 2023-Week 3-4

Week 3-4 zoomed by!

Garden stuff done this week:

I watched the seedlings daily and 11 of 13 varieties have popped up!

I have already replanted 62 of the seedlings, and I have a ton more to go.
The garlic is getting big in the raised bed garden!
The bin of potatoes is doing OK. I brought it in a few times because of the cold temperatures but I forgot one night so all the sprouting ends that were up are now toast, but there are more coming!

Here is a look and what I have been working on:

That’s it for now. It’s going to be a beautiful week weatherwise, so I will have more to share next time. -MM

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Week 14 of 52

Week 14 was much better than last week! Meals wise we started off the week with ham and scalloped potatoes and asparagus for Sunday’s meal, Monday, I was by myself so I ate a salad with a side of couscous and sweet potatoes, Tuesday was ham with sweet potatoes and asparagus (can you see a pattern here?) Wednesday was homemade shake and bake pork chops with Kraft mac and cheese and home canned beans, Thursday was leftovers, Friday we went out after Good Friday service and Saturday I was so exhausted from baking all day (and Friday) that we ate out a second time. Seriously that was the only meal I ate on Saturday!

I did get some really great deals this past week. Asparagus was on sale for $1.77/ lb, I had an E-Coupon for a $1 off an already-on-sale jar of Hellmann’s Mayo so that only cost me $3.99. Whole pineapples were $2.99, Gold Medal flour 5lb bags were $2.50 ea. Folger’s coffee was $7.99 for the big container so I bought 2. I bought a semi-boneless ham for $9, Thomas’s English muffins were $2.64, Land ‘O Lakes butter were $3.50, and Perry’s Ice cream was $3.50.

It was a great week for sales!

Total spent on groceries week 14: $91.28

Total for April: $91.28
Grand total for the year $1,335.06

How was your Easter? Until next time! -MM

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Week 13 of 52

Week 13 was a very tough week for us. Multiple evening meetings for both Scott and I, bakery orders, work, and two hour choir practices. Then on Thursday we drove down to Ithaca (two hours from us) for a new car and on the way found out Scott’s mom was taken to the ER with fluid on her lungs. We drove straight from the car signing to the ER to check on her. Scott drove to Elmira Friday to be with her and his dad, and Sunday brought her home from the hospital. Friday when he was at the hospital I spent the evening getting the parsonage thrift sale ready for Saturday and Saturday we both spent all day selling our hearts out until the storm hit in the afternoon. We were both exhausted by Sunday evening. Why am I sharing all of this? I guess because none of us really know what the week will bring at the start of it and unexpected things pop up. If I had been more prepared the stress of cooking would have been eased by just grabbing a prepped meal from the freezer. I definitely need to work on this!

I spent $102.96 this week on groceries. I can’t believe I got out of a Wegmans only spending $36 and I even bought salmon! I splurged on salmon and olives and dolmas. If you have never had a dolma it’s a rice mixture wrapped in grape leaf and pickled.

Last week I shared some items from my pantry that I wanted to use up and while some got used in recipes, I didn’t get to all of them because of the exhausting week we had. Here are a few of the meals we had and how I used some of those ingredients:

These are the items I selected to use this week

The macaroni pictured in that group I used for my lunch one day. I eat a lot of pasta with just butter and salt on it.

What I didn’t get to was the pumpkin and evaporated milk and the brownie mixes but the rest I used. Yay! Not bad!

Total spent on groceries week 13: $102.96

Total for March: $320.58
Grand total for the year $1243.78

That’s an average of $95 a week. Pretty good! I still want to work on getting that average down though.

How was your past week? Until next time! -MM

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Week 12 of 52

Week 12 I spent $46.25 on groceries at the store and $31.98 on Amazon for a 24 pk case of white tuna. That’s a total of $78.23

Here is what I bought at the store:

No deals here! I bought 9 items and it cost me $46! Eeeks! They were all expensive items pretty much but as the weather gets better I will more likely venture to other places for better deals. Isn’t that funny how that works? The crummier the weather, the less you want to slog yourself around.

We ate good this past week. Yeah I know I ate fish stix but I ate carrots and rice with it to make it healthier. 😉 Chicken Fajitas, a pasta bake (looked and tasted better than that photo), big salads, and homemade pot pie. Lots of leftovers too.

I do have something new I am going to try doing in week 13. I am going to pick some items out of my pantry/freezer/spice cabinet and create recipes to use these items up. I am trying not to waste anything so I will shop from my pantry as much as I can in the next few weeks.

Here are the items I have pulled from my pantry that I want to use this week:

If you are like me, you probably have small quantities of different kinds of pasta sitting in your pantry. I plan to use the macaroni, rigatoni, shells and a bag of fusilli pasta that my son got free at a food show. I definitely don’t usually have brownie mixes on hand but my husband has been cleaning out his mom’s pantry and she wasn’t using these so he brought them home. I’ll whip some kind of fancy brownie recipe up with them. I don’t like Ragu sauce, I am more of a Prego kind of gal if I have to buy a jarred sauce but again my son bought it so can’t let it go to waste. I also want to use the pineapple, oranges, pumpkin mix and evaporated milk too. Should be an interesting week!

If you’ll notice I already used some of the fusilli and the sauce and rigatoni in the above pasta bake recipe.

Ok that’s it for week 12

Total spent on groceries week 12: $78.23

Total for March: $217.62
Grand total for the year $1140.82

See you next week! -MM

Ripley Victory Garden 2023-Week 2

Week 2 was spent reading, planning, and planting seeds indoors.

Garden stuff done this week:

Planted 13 different varieties of veggies/herbs indoors

Purchased two books specifically to learn succession gardening techniques.
Uncovered the rhubarb outside
Planted a bin with sprouting potatoes

I started plum tomatoes, regular tomatoes, purple and green basil, purple and green sprouting broccoli, purple and orange cauliflower, jalapenos, Lunchbox peppers, bell peppers and eggplant. I used the black bottomed/clear lidded takeout containers I had on hand. They were brand new but I didn’t like them for freezing meals in so I thought I would use them for starting my plants.

The two books I bought were “Grow More Food” by Colin McCrate and Brad Halm and “Plant Grow Harvest Repeat: Grow a Bounty of Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers by Mastering the Art of Succession Planting”, by Meg McAndrews Cowden, who I follow on Instagram.

I am only a few pages into Grow More Food and I am already learning lots of new things. They have a great chart that tells you size of garden, what to expect to harvest from that size of a garden, and how many hours a week it will take to maintain that size of a garden. My garden is currently 1573 sq ft which will be large enough to feed 6 to 10 people all season and still have enough to distribute small quantities of especially productive crops. If I plan it right, I should be able to grow substantial storage crops and have plenty to preserve for the winter. It says to expect to spend 6-8 hours a week keeping up with just the garden not including preservation time. In past years I have not made my garden a priority like I would like and I hope to change that this season.

The rhubarb I planted last year from a friend’s divided plants have already started popping up this season! Anyone have any interesting rhubarb recipes they want to share?

I planted a bin of potatoes yesterday and stuck it outside. I had some potatoes stored from last year that sprouted so I am experimenting to see if I can get them to grow. What do I have to lose right? I’ll keep you updated.

I already have more to share but will save it for next update!

Please feel free to share recipes that use rhubarb :)-MM

SAL-Project Joyce’s Rose #10

I got quite a bit stitched since last update.

Here is where I left off last time

And here is where I am now.

I have just a few stitches left on the last leaf to do and there is one more rose bud above it to stitch and the whole bottom will be complete!

This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis and we greatly appreciate her keeping all of us on track. Now go and visit the other stitchers in this group to see the delightful projects they are working on.

See you in 3 weeks! -MM

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan, Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, AJ, Cathie, Linda, Helen, Connie, Cindy

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Week 11 of 52

Week 11 was all over the place in the meal department. Sunday we had a chuck roast with squash and veggies, Monday was my birthday! I didn’t want anything for my birthday but my husband did convince me to at least go out for dinner so we did do that Monday after work. Tuesday was again birthday themed with a dinner at my mom’s. I share my birthday with my niece so mom made soup, salad, fruit and cookies for the three of us to mark the occasion. It was fun with just us girls! Wednesday we had roast leftovers. Thursday we got a pizza because I was knee deep in orders for home delivery, Friday we ate the ever classic corned beef and cabbage for St. Paddy’s Day, which I cooked in the crock pot and Saturday we had a 60th birthday party for a friend and ate there. Looking back on all of this now I can see why my stomach was acting up yesterday! Don’t worry I’ll get back to cooking normally this week.

Groceries were again minimal this past week with $65.09 spent.

Most of our groceries this week were centered around St. Patrick’s Day with a corned beef roast, carrots, and cabbage. I didn’t find any earth-shattering deals, just picked up a few things we needed.

Total spent week 11: $65.09

Total for March: $139.39
Grand total for the year $1062.59

Did you find any great deals this week on groceries?

See you next week! -MM

Ripley Victory Garden 2023-Week 1

As I have gotten older I have found that planning my garden and trying to figure out which varieties to grow is almost as exhausting as doing the actually planting and maintaining.

There are just so many choices now, which is fantastic, but it can be very overwhelming. Also gone are the days of seeds being inexpensive. They are still worth the money, but at $4 to $5 a packet or more it definitely is an upfront investment.

I ordered from Johnny’s, Harris, and Jung Seeds. I had a $50 gift card to use with Harris Seed. My grand total for seeds and a 5 pk of 50 cell trays and sales tax/shipping was $188.69. A promo code actually worked for Jung and Johnny’s so I did save $12.22. Always try using promo codes when you order something. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t but at least give them a try.

Below are all the seeds I ordered.

I still have seeds leftover for cauliflower, beans, basil, pie pumpkins, buttercup squash, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, zinnia and sunflower.

I will be purchasing from the nursery: celery, onions, shallots, potatoes and in the fall about 6 bulbs of garlic.

Perennial veggie/fruit plants I already have established are sweet cherry, sour cherry, peach, apricot, apple, pear, raspberry, blueberry, rhubarb, strawberry and asparagus. Also add all my herbs.

I think this is good enough for now. I’ll write more next week!

Are you overwhelmed when you buy your seeds too? Let me know what you are growing this year too 🙂 -MM