Mickey D's is expensive- Food and Finance in a Frustrating world

Kombucha

2010-08-07T12:07:00.001-04:00

I've been making kombucha for the last few weeks. Pretty much, kombucha is a fermented tea which is made by making a sweetened tea and letting it ferment using a "SCOBY", also called a mushroom. The SCOBY is not actually a mushroom at all, it's a "symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast". Sounds delicious, hey? Kombucha is supposed to have a number of health benefits, ranging from general body

Mmm brussels sprouts

2009-11-12T15:17:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned recently, brussels sprouts are among my favorite vegetables. I'm not really sure how this happened because my mother never prepared them for us when I was growing up. We didn't really have much from the brassica family except for broccoli. But I started eating them a few years ago and i haven't looked back since.As you would expect, brussels sprouts are low in calories; a cup of

Where have you gone BIll Bailey?

2009-10-25T16:17:00.000-04:00

Ahh, I haven't disappeared for good. I just got hung up with some family drama (now resolved) and was taking classes (lots of work). But I'm feeling spiffy now and still committed to living the (cheap) good life.As much as I love the assortment of vegetables at the market in the summer, I really love what comes out in the fall. In fact, it may sound crazy, but I think that brussels sprouts are my

Farmer's market haul 8/2, stretching food, and moods

2009-08-03T10:40:00.002-04:00

Last week, I was surprised at how much food I had left over from the previous week. I was trying to figure it out because it felt like I had been eating my usual diet, for the most part, and I didn't think I'd overbought by that much the week before. In retrospect, I realized that I had changed a few things form what I'd been doing for the weeks before.For one thing, I made more things that were

Farmer's Market 07/26/2009

2009-07-26T15:01:00.003-04:00

The Farmer's market had a million things to buy but I didn't need much of anything. Honestly, I'm not sure what I ate last week because it seems like there is still lots of food left in the refrigerator.So, I pretty much limited myself to eggs, milks, rhubarb (yep, they still had some), cantaloupe and and adorable eggplant. My total was $14 so I splurged and got an iced coffee for $1.50.Splurging

Market haul 18 July

2009-07-19T11:31:00.002-04:00

Not the nest picture but it shows how much stuff there was.Rhubarb is almost done for the year so I bought two pounds so I can put some away for the fall. That was my big expense.8 tomatoes (seconds) 2.502 lb rhubarb 7.003 big zucchini 1.003 medium cucumbers 1.008 small eggplants 3.005 apples 3.001/2 gallon milk 3.50 (I split this with my housemate so i don't usually count the whole thing in my

2009-07-15T21:27:00.002-04:00

In the end, I couldn't help myself. I just know that someone is going to clear out the refrigerator at work and throw away a ton of the food that is still hanging around. So, last night, I made a nice plate to take to a meeting I had up the street. It's not required to take food but I knew that people would eat it if I took it. So I picked up some cheese and salami and pepperoni and olives. Yes,

Another interesting blog I found

2009-07-14T17:53:00.002-04:00

There are lots of frugal living blogs out there these days. I love to browse them when I have time because it's interesting to see all the different circumstances under which people started and are living the "frugal life"(for the record, I don't see myself as being particularly frugal for frugality's sake. I have financial goals which meant that I needed to re prioritize my spending).One blog

Freebies

2009-07-13T11:55:00.004-04:00

Yesterday was "free slurpee day" at Seven Eleven. Apparently, Monday is free mocha day at McDonald's. There is a ton of leftovers in the kitchen here at work so it is not an exaggeration to say that I could have free lunch and snacks for the next few days. The problem is that I don't really want any of these things. Occasionally, my Sevem Eleven has a sugar free slurpee that is nice but I

Pot luck hangover

2009-07-13T07:00:00.002-04:00

Ahh, the pot luck last night was fantastic! The food was all beautiful and a lot of it was local. there was a delicious cole slaw, my quinoa salad, a wheatberry salad. An incredible Trinidadian dish (the hostess is trini) made with vegetables and dried fish was the only non vegetarian thing there. there were amazing roasted vegetables with fresh mozzarella and a dip that I'm not even sure what

Another potluck and farmer's market haul

2009-07-12T11:27:00.005-04:00

My tabouleh received a lukewarm greeting at the baby shower. Mostly because the party was at 2:30 and people wanted more snacky food. This was good for me because it means I got to bring most of it home. I have another potluck today, a picnic in the park at a concert. I want to be sure to bring something unusual but also to work with what I have so I've picked a recipe for Tomato Mint Quinoa

Wste Not Want not

2009-07-11T10:52:00.003-04:00

I ran across the Confessions of a (Sometimes!) Serendipitous Girl which is a cute (in layout)and smart (in content) blog by a woman who has recently relocated to Oregon. SSG is planning on starting a food budget of $40-50/week and will be posting about her shopping and menus. I have a feeling that she will come up with some new ideas that I can certainly use.She also posted the first of Food

Rethinking coupons

2009-07-10T08:53:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to bring something today for an office baby shower. Luckily, at my suggestion, the food theme is sort of middle eastern so I knew it would be easy to find something in my budget that I could do quickly.Since I STILL have tomatoes and a cucumber, I decided to make Tabouleh using a pretty much standard recipe like the one here. I'm not a big fan

Other people's food

2009-07-09T08:34:00.003-04:00

I have a real post in draft form but I wanted to ask people to do two things:1. Click at the Hunger Site2. Look into the H.R. 1410: Newborn, Child, and Mother Survival Act of 20093/10/2009--Introduced.Newborn, Child, and Mother Survival Act of 2009 - Amends the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to authorize the President to furnish assistance to improve the health of newborns, children, and mothers

Weekly Shopping (sort of)

2009-07-08T08:36:00.004-04:00

Becaused I overspent a bit last week, I wanted to keep my spending this week to a minimum. I also looked around and realized that I still have lots of food in the house so I'm not in dire need of much. Before i left last week, I put two qurts of tomatoes in the freezer, half of teh peas that I had, rhubarb, and some rice that I'd already cooked. I still have a cucumber, and some squash in the

Back from the weekend

2009-07-06T21:38:00.003-04:00

I'm back from the weekend at my sister's. It was very interesting to b ein her house after having gone through eating my own house down to bare bones. She is a warehouse shopping addict! Her house has 4 jars of peanut butter, five large containers of various kinds of nuts, 8 bags of chips of various sorts, 6 boxes of boca burgers, 5 boxes of vegetarian corn dogs, four kinds of cereals, a

Visiting Family

2009-07-01T07:59:00.003-04:00

I'm leaving tonight for my sister's until Monday. it's about 600miles so we will drive through the night (I sleep and my housemate drives and then when we get there, he gets to sleep).This presents a dilemma for me because I want to be generous and share in the expense for food but I'd also like to stay within my weekly budget if I can. So my plan is to take actual food with me rather than

Mid morning snack

2009-06-30T08:59:00.003-04:00

I was playing with "StumbleUpon" this morning and ran into this article on WomansDay Magazine:What You Should Be Eating for Breakfast Include these foods in your morning routine to help curb hunger By Olivia Putnal Posted June 26, 2009 from WomansDay.com