March Meals {Week of March 19/12}

Cooking.
Meal planning.
Budgeting.
Bleh!

Well, I think I have found my groove!

We using our bread maker almost every week, there is always the right ingredients in the cupboard and the kitchen is organized!

I am always trying to find ways to save money on food. First I thought I would do some research and see if anyone suggests how much I should be spending in the first place.  I have figured out two numbers.

1. Your weekly budget should be $3-$5 per person, per day.
2. You should expect to spend 11%-14% of your take home, families income.

What does that look like? (Yearly income) × .11 ÷ 52 = weekly food budget.

Right now we are spending about 11.5% and I think it would be awesome if I could manage 10%.
Now I just need to figure out how to do that!

I have slowly but surely figured out a few things.

1. No Frills will price match. This was the first week I tried this. I felt a little disorganized - I grabbed the wrong name brand of frozen corn, forgot to get grapes... but I know it will go better next time.
2. Make food from scratch.  This one is tough.  I remember working a 9 hour shift in Oakville and the 3 hour commute - there is no way I would have been able to make everything from scratch.  Now, I have a lot more opportunities.  I only work about 15 hours outside of the house and about 4 hours at home. Red is sleeping through the night.  I have a bread maker (even though it is technically my husbands!)
3. Buy in bulk.  I had to hyper-organize the kitchen to make this work.  I needed to have the room to store all that extra food. 
4. Buy when things are on sale (even if it isn't needed yet).  I don't seem to get a big benefit from this one. I am trying to eat clean so I don't food that is full of preservatives; that has a long shelf life.  Right now, this only seems to apply to my husbands shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant and toilet paper.
5. Cooking meals once a month and freezing them.  I have just discovered this amazing site that gives you detailed instructions on how to do this.  I just got all the ingredients for the March menu today.  Including our extra snacks, meats and dairy purchases I spent $175. I am hoping this will last us 2 weeks - with a little left over for milk and such in the second week.  Instead of using this menu as the site suggests (spreading out all the meals for the months), I am going to cram it all in for two weeks.
6. Participate in a Freezer exchange group. If you are on Facebook, there is fan page that explains the whole idea.

So, what's on the menu?

Breakfast:

• Apple Spice Oatmeal
• Peanut Butter and Banana Oatmeal
• Pumpkin and Nut Oatmeal
• Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins *
• Pumpkin Biscuits *
• Fruit Smoothies

Lunch:

• Mini Vegetarian Meatloaves *
• Broccoli Cheddar Biscuit Muffins *

Snacks:

• Mini Zucchini Muffins
• Pizza Dippers
• Rice Cakes
• Roasted Chickpeas
• Popcorn

Dinners:

• Salmon Frittata and Salad (2 meals)
• Veggie Pizza and Salad
• Zucchini/Meat Burgers, Spaghetti Squash and Broccoli *
• Asparagus and Mushroom Quesadillas *
• Broccoli Cheese Stromboli *
• Spinach Meatballs and Pasta *
• Chickpea patties and Veggies *
• Greek-Style Quinoa Burgers with Pitas and Veggies *

* www.onceamonthmom.com

Here's hoping this works!

Leftover Soup

For a long time, now, I have been trying to get organized with a meal plan.  Last year I found this book called More Time Mom's Family Meals.  It has 6 weeks of meals with a shopping list for each week.  This worked for a while but it just didn't fit out family's needs.  I'm a vegetarian (the rest of the family eats both kinds of meals), and most of the meals have meat in them and I am not that good at translating the recipes into meat-free. 

Since finding that book, I have decided to eat more "clean" diet.  No refined sugar, very little processed/pre-packaged foods and no artificial preservatives.  On top of that, my husband is making HUGE changes to his eating habits and for the next little while we need to avoid pasta (as the main dish), casseroles and heavy sauces.  Quite simply the perfectly organized meal plan I want to create has a whole lot of random restrictions!

So, for now, I am going to try to break down what I want to accomplish and work on each goal separately:

1. Use every leftover.

2. Double 1 meal every 2 weeks so it can be frozen for a later date.

3. Start a "Freezer Meal Exchange" group.

4. Come up with a meal plan every week, for 6 weeks.

5. Create a ready made shopping list for each of the 6 weeks.

Task #1 (and #4)

Freezer soup.

One of my friends showed me how she adds leftovers to a container that is left in the freezer.  I thought that was a great idea but at the time I was intimidated by cooking so the idea was stored away.  Now, I think I am ready to do it - I mean it can't be any worse then it is right now! If the soup turns out gross then it gets thrown out - just the same as all those leftovers getting thrown out now...

On the menu this week:

• Moroccan Chickpea Stew with couscous {recipe from a good friend}
• Broccoli, whole roasted chicken/pan fried tofu with salt and pepper, carrots, butternut squash and potato
• Orange marinated salmon, mixed salad (with homemade dressing), rice {recipe: More Time Mom's}
• Beef/tofu stir fry with peppers and rice noddles {recipe: More Time Mom's}
• Asparagus and cheese quiche with whole wheat pie crust and salad{pie crust recipe}

As for the soup...

I feel like I still need a plan so I started with some veggie broth and added the leftover carrots, broccoli and chicken.  I will add either some leftover rice or rice noodles (depending how the stir fry is made). I usually just make veggie puree soups but this one will be more like a chicken noodle with chunks of veggies. Not sure if that is enough for 2 3/4 servings of soup but we will see!

p.s. Just in case you are curious: I don't eat chicken but I try to have a serving of fish twice a month. This will be the first time, in a long time, that I have had meat in my soup...

Baby Cloth and Mama Cloth

Baby Cloth

There are plenty of blogs out there to explain what cloth diapering is all about, what the benefits are, how it works, what the best kinds are but I wanted to share why we choose to use cloth.  Of course, when I say we, I me Red and I.  At the end of most days, my husband would probably rather disposables :)

Let's start at the beginning.  I was pregnant with Ginger - I have NO clue how the cloth diaper bug got in my ear... honestly I try to remember and I just have no idea!  Somehow I ended up online doing research.  This lead to finding a store somewhere near Hamilton that sold them.  I found plenty of online stores but I wanted to touch these crazy diapers.  I wanted to meet someone who actually used them! 

I finally found Snuggle Bugz, in Burlington.  They only sold one kind of diaper at the time - Velcro Bum Genius.  They had blue, green, yellow, pink and white.  To be honest, I remember looking at the guy who was selling them and thinking "Your nuts! There is no way the inside of the diaper is going to stay clean.  They will just sit there for 3 days, in a pail, and they will be clean?! No way!"  Well I guess he was a good sales man because whenever someone asked me, "What can I buy the baby?" I would send them to Snuggle Bugz.  If they seemed hesitant to drive all the way to Burlington, I said any money to pay for the diapers myself would also be wonderful!



Big Spender wasn't convinced.  I wasn't the most... tidy person.  I would leave dirty laundry on the floor until I had nothing left to wear and then would do laundry in a couple of days!  I convinced him that I really would wash them and we started out with 15 green, blue and yellow ones (no pink please!).

I loved it from the very start!  I NEVER had to run to the store when she was wearing the last diaper.  I NEVER had to wipe the crystal gunk off her tiny newborn bum.  I NEVER had to smell another wet disposable diaper (I am telling you - 'sposies smell way more than cloth).  I Never had to worry if she was going to outgrow the size 2 pack of diaper before the pack was empty.  I Never looked back!

My favourite lately:

Flats with a Snappi

Thirsties Duo Wrap with snaps

Thirsties Duo Diaper

Kissaluvs Fitted

Kissa's Wool Cover

Why baby cloth?
1. Far less waste - mostly when garbage day comes around.
2. If it feels soft in my hands, I know it must be more comfy on baby's butt!
3. Far less chemical and plastic.
4. Faster potty training. Ginger was day trained just after her 2nd birthday and night trained just after
     2.5 years.
5. It's just plain cheaper! To be honest, I am surprised this was number five on my list :)
6. Re-usable for multiple children.

NOTE: Dear squeamish reader, this next bit is about "feminine hygiene". That's your only warning. ;)

Mama cloth
I am fairly new to the "mama cloth" world.  I have heard about the Diva Cup about 3 years ago but we were planning on getting pregnant fairly quickly after Ginger so I waited until after Red was born to look into it more.  Around this time, I also heard about Re-diaper hosting a "pad party".  A few women got together and sewed some cloth pads to give to girls in developing countries.  I thought "I can so make some of those!"  Well, a few months went buy and surprise surprise - I hadn't made any!  I finally sucked it up and bought some from Tree Hugger Mama Cloth.  I just love them!   The Tree Hugger's pads I purchased are one layer of minky fleece and one layer of regular fleece (I think there must be something absorbent in the core, too).

Tree Hugger Mama Cloth







 I have seen Luna Pads but I haven't tried them yet. I would like to get a couple of Luna Pads to do a comparison but I think I would still choose Tree Hugger.

Lunapads

I rinse them out in the bathroom sink and toss them in with my dirty load of towels.  They come out perfectly clean.  Something I learned with cloth diapers is that man-made fibers don't stain as much as natural fibers.  I only have three pads right now but they only act as  "back up" because I have the Diva Cup.  I haven't purchased disposable pads/tampons since September!

Why mama cloth?
1. No need to spend money, on pads, every month.
2. So much more comfy than disposables! They may be a tiny bit thicker but I would often get minor  irritations from the plastic of disposable pads so I think cloth is so nice.  Cloth also breathes better than the plastic backed ones.
3. No embarrassing noises in a public restroom when you need to change your pad - you know the
noise, right?
4. No chemicals against my skin.
5. Not a plastic wrapper, backing or packaging anywhere in sight!