Hello again

Well it has been a crazy couple of weeks, first getting over being sick and then buying a house, who wants to buy our house???  The next couple of months are going to be crazy, as the last couple of weeks, the purging, organizing and cleaning has been endless.  Thanks to HGTV's home staging shows our house has to look perfect and with two kids that is a challenge in it's self.

So although I have been following my vegetarian lifestyle, it's not been a healthy one.  I have barely been able to get dinner on the table, I am so exhausted from the purging, organizing and cleaning.  We have had alot of slapped together meals, leftovers and ALOT of pasta.  My husband is not too keen.  So now is the time to get back on track.  I did make a huge batch of gouda and lentil soup, still have some in the freezer.

One thing I don't have a problem with is lunch.  The daughter and I love having what I call 'ala carte' meals.  I check what is in the fridge, grab about 4 things and we have a meal.  Today for instance we had some left over Teriyaki Tofu that I fried up, then some carrots that I fried in the marinade after the tofu, cut up tomatoes and a warmed wrap.  Little bits of everything, we can pick and choose, I like those kinds of lunches.  Thankfully our daughter eats anything, so we never really have a waste of food.

I am hoping this weekend to come up with about 3-4 meals that I can always have on hand for myself when I am in a rut, busy and need to make dinner fast.  If anyone has any suggestions, please pass them along.

A short blog today, I am exhausted and the daughter is napping and I am going to join her.

Night, night.

When is this going to end

I can't seem to kick this flu thingy...it's hanging in there at one stage, not getting any better or worse.  So I am going to delay any blog writing until next week.  On a positive note, the husband had decided not to eat pork any more, he was doing some searching on the internet and saw how they treat pigs and said he was crying at this desk.  Now if I can only get him to view video's on the cows and chickens, it's a slow but steady progress.  I try not to preach and give people information if asked and hope they make the right decisions for them and their family, on a good note, now I don't have to buy bacon (yuck) anymore.

Still feeling crappy

Good morning, another quick note to let my followers know that the daughter and I are still feeling crappy today, so I have no new post.  I didn't get out and do any comparison shopping this weekend, spent most of it sleeping.  I hope to do some catching up later this week, the menu this week will include alot of soups or stews. 

Hope your staying warm and healthy.

A new look

Just a quick note today to let you know that I am doing some rearranging on my blog.  I am testing out some new looks.  I also have a sick daughter so not much time to post anything.  Will update next week, this weekend I hope to get out and do some comparison shopping for the budget.

See you then.

Eating on a budget

I love reading blogs, I love to see how other people live, eat, design and what they think.  I follow one blog Balancing Beauty and Bedlam at http://inpassionatepursuit.blogspot.com/, at the moment she is eating from her pantry and spending $25 a week on groceries.  Wow, I am keeping a close eye on this blog, because that is fasinating that she can buy groceries for $25.  I was looking through my grocery receipts yesterday and I spend that much alone on fruit and vegetables for the week.  Most of the blogs I follow are in the U.S. and I know from living in Houston for a year that food is alot cheaper there then here in Canada.  But can we apply some of the same principals to our grocery shopping here in Canada?

When I lived in Houston the weekend newspaper had alot of flyers and they were full of coupons.  We are lucky here to see a couple of flyers with coupons and usually on name brand products that once you use the coupon the product is the same price as if you were to buy the store brand.  I know they have double coupon days, store matching coupons, etc. we have the first Tuesday of the month when Safeway gives you 10% off your grocery purchase.  Yipppeeee! 

She talks about the reduced for quick sale bins and I know we have them here and I do frequently check them out, but am now going to be taking a closer look as in the past they don't look very good and I had no plans to use what was there in the next couple of days.  I haven't seen a reduced for quick sale in the bakery section or the meat section regularly. 

Another blog I follow, Bankrupt Vegan http://bankruptvegan.blogspot.com/, talks about buying food at a Salvage store, not sure what that is, don't think we have any in Canada.  Maybe Liquidation World might be along those lines, unless I am missing something, please let me know.  She got some smoking deals at the salvage store, here is her blog about it http://bankruptvegan.blogspot.com/2009/12/salvage-your-vegan-pantry.html.  Note:  I just did a quick google search for "salvage groceries in canada" and got nothing in Canada, lots of links to the U.S., go figure.

So I am inspired, to cut my grocery bill in 1/2 within a three month time frame (at the moment I spend about $250-$300 every two weeks).  This will be feeding the husband and son meat, the daughter and myself vegetarian, eating well, eating our fruits and vegetables and staying on budget.  I am going to be checking out the Liquidation World tomorrow, it is right beside our dentist office, which we will be at also I receive an email from a bulk food company, so I will be looking at that closer and I will be checking out the delivery service for fruits and vegetables.  Not sure if that will save me money on gas coming and going to the grocery store, I will figure that out.

So here is my pantry and fridge at the moment.  Wow, when I post these pictures, it looks like I have a very full pantry, why do I look in here all the time and find nothing to eat. 

So my plan is to not buy any groceries until the 15th of January, weeellllll, I might have to buy some milk along the way.  Okay, I have put it in print so now I need to stick to it.  We have alot of fruit and vegetables, fresh and frozen, so we should be good.  I am always concerned about having enough fruits and vegetables

For a recap of our dinner last night, I made ravioli with mushroom sauce and corn.  I took a recipe from 1001 Low Fat Vegetarian Cookbook and tweeked it a bit.  I stuffed the ravioli with a goat cheese mixture that had sundried tomatoes, oregano and some sauteed garlic and onions and I used wonton wrappers for the ravioli part.  They turned out really good, the only thing was when I cooked the ravioli in batches and they stuck together when I put them on the plate.  The mushroom sauce was awesome, the husband liked it, the son wouldn't even look at it, this is why we had corn and the daughter had a couple of bits, but she is not feeling well.

With this post my menu will change a bit this week.  I will keep you up to date on what is happening.  Hopefully I can inspire other Canadians to do some digging out there to find cheap groceries, different places to look for groceries and smoking deals.  Send me any links, suggestions or comments with regards to this post, I would love to hear from you.