The Professional Domestic

Grocery Shopping and Meal Planning 2024 Week 1 of 52

Happy New Year! I am committed to shopping and planning mindfully again in 2024. I kind of lost steam about halfway through 2023 when I thought I was missing out on buying more fun things to cook with. Turns out I can still get those fun things, I just need to plan better for them.

This year long grocery shopping and meal planning blog series will focus on three themes. One is how much is spent on groceries, the goal being $75 a week, give or take. Food waste is an issue in every home so that is a second theme I will keep working on this year and third will be meal planning and prep. I constantly stress myself out and succumb to eating out because I am not planning and prepping well enough.

This week I spent $87.11 on groceries and I went to Wegmans for all of it. This is a huge splurge for us but since I already have plenty of meats in the freezer, I shopped for fun ingredients to stock up my pantry.

Oh, and hey, just a side note a mini 4th area I want to explore this year is shopping at more ethnic mom and pop stores in the city. We are 30 minutes from downtown Rochester, NY and my Italian and Irish heritages can be better served at Rubino’s, and the like, which I haven’t been to in years.

Ok, back to my shopping today. Some of the fun ingredients I needed to stock up my pantry were balsamic vinegar and olive oil. I bought 2 boxes of Cracklin’ Oat Bran at $5.19 a box. I bought two because you can’t find it in any stores anymore and Doug will eat an entire box himself, so one for him and one for me. I also bought a 2lb bag of fresh green beans at $5.99, that’s a lot of beans! Blueberries and raspberries were a splurge at $4.99 and $4.49 respectively.

Meals planned this week are pan fried pork chops with fresh mushroom gravy, green beans and mashed potatoes, salmon with sweet potatoes, rice and broccoli, Baked stuffed chicken with brussels, tacos, and soup and salad one night and the rest will be leftovers.

So here we go into 2024 with all the hopes of a grateful and humble year.

Total spent on groceries so far in 2024 – $87.11

Until next week – MM

June-December Cakes

Here are some of the cakes and goodies I have worked on in the last six months!

I had a whopping 10 graduations this season! Only a few were cakes. The 3 layered stacked cake was one of those graduations. Fun right?

I’ll update again at the end of May. -MM

Not Impressed With Our Debt December 2023

I can’t believe the last time I wrote a post for this series it was January. An entire year has gone by and we are more in credit card debt than we ever have been before. It is frustrating beyond words.

You have no idea how many times I wanted to post “Hey, I give up!” I can’t control the circumstances or people around me. It just makes me want to scream. I feel like such a failure. But we can’t stop living life, right?

Those are all things I think about on almost a weekly basis. Although the credit card soared again I do feel good about the fact that we paid for 5 brand new windows for our home and a new kitchen floor in cash. That’s something right?

So here is the current credit card balance on the card I was working on at the beginning of the year.

$9,971.14

It was down to $2900 so we have added over $7,000 in debt to it this year.

Last month I called my credit card company and asked if they had any promotions for lowering the interest rate and they said yes! Instead of 26% they lowered the interest rate on my credit card to 15.99% for 6 months. That’s huge! Don’t be afraid to call your credit card company and ask if they can work with you on interest rates. Many times they can and will work with you.

January is always property tax bill month so we have that to pay but I should still be able to pay down another $700 on the next credit card cycle.

I am sorry I just gave up this year. So many things have happened that have taken my spirit away. As a team my husband and I have once again evaluated where our energies should lie and are making the necessary changes.

I’ll keep you updated even if it feels mortifying sometimes. We are all struggling with debt and most definitely need to talk about it.

Until next time -MM

SAL-Project Joyce’s Rose #21

I made huge progress the last three weeks and I am very excited to show you what I got accomplished!

Here is where I left off last update:

And here is where I am now.

Most of my stitches were concentrated on the top bud but I also finished the top two leaves and worked some on the center.

That’s it for now. Because of the Christmas eve falls on our next three week update we have decided to give ourselves a break and push the next update out until January 14th. That will give us six weeks to work on our projects and I hope to have a happy dance for that posting!

Thank you Avis for all you do for our group and welcome back Cindy!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. See you January 14th.

Avis, Claire, Gun, Christina, Kathy, Margaret, Heidi, Jackie, Sunny, Megan,

Deborah, Sharon, Daisy, Cathie, Linda, Helen, MaryMargaret, Cindy

SAL-Project Joyce’s Rose #20

Still not a lot stitched in the last three weeks, but here’s my progress

Here is where I left off last update:

And here is where I am now.

Most of my stitches were concentrated on the top two leaves but there is close to 15 different colors in those small leaves which makes progress painfully slow.

That’s all I’ve got this time.

This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, and we really appreciate her updates and organization of our group.

Now, I am off to visit the other stitchers in this group to see the delightful projects they are working on. I am sure they got a lot more stitched than I did! See you again in three weeks!

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

SAL-Project Joyce’s Rose #19

I have been bad at stitching the last three weeks. There was just so much going on that I left it to the last few days to stitch. I did get 200 stitches in, though, so here is how Joyce’s Rose is looking as of today.

Here is where I left off last update:

And here is where I am now.

There, the last rose bud is starting to emerge, and now it is full steam to a finish. I want to get this project done by the end of the year!

Cindy, we will miss you!

This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, and we really appreciate her updates and organization of our group.

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!

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

SAL-Project Joyce’s Rose #18

Happy Sunday! I feel I made great progress the last 3 weeks despite being so busy with work and baking.

Here is where I left off last update:

And here is where I am now.

There is still another rose bud to start in the upper right corner but that will be the only other new part of the project.

This SAL (stitch-a-long) is managed by Avis, and we really appreciate her updates and organization of our group.

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!

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

What We Ate and How Much We Spent on Groceries – Summer Months

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:

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

SAL-Project Joyce’s Rose #17

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!

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

Freezing Stuffed Peppers – From Plant to Freezer

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

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: