Have I mentioned yet just how much I love shopping only one time per week? It really is a game changer. I love knowing exactly what I’m going to buy (even though there’s a curve ball every now and then) and I love knowing exactly what I’m going to cook. It takes so much stress out of my life. It really doesn’t take that much time to plan ahead and I’d rather sit down for a few minutes and plan ahead than to go out in cold nasty weather for another trip to the grocery store mid-week. Know what I’m sayin’?
So let’s take a look at how last week went for me (spoiler: it went great!)…
What I Bought
Hey look! I didn’t lose my bananas this week! :P Apples were finally on sale, so I grabbed a couple of those, as were butternut squash, and potatoes. I got more carrots and celery because I had soup on the menu again, and a bunch of parsley to fill out my autumn salad.
I needed a couple of staples this week like milk, oats, tortillas, and oregano (in my kitchen tortillas are a staple). I had a couple pricier items this week (bacon and feta) but leftovers of both can be frozen, so now I’ll have them on hand for future recipes. I had a little extra room in my budget, so I grabbed a bag of frozen broccoli florets. I use frozen broccoli florets for so many different things and I like to have them on hand at all times. Oh yeah, and beans. Beans were the cheap filler for this week’s main recipe! :)
I made a couple last minute switches to my grocery list once I got to the store. I planned to use pears in my salad, but apples were less expensive, so I went with that. I was going to use a fresh lemon for the salad dressing, but they were $0.80 each, so I decided to just use the bottled stuff I had sitting my fridge. Instead of using kale for my salad, I decided to use parsley because it was easier, cheaper, and if needed I could use it as a garnish in my soup photos (double duty!). I had peanut butter on my list because I’m out, but it wasn’t critical, so I listed it with a question mark to indicate that I’d get it if I had room in my budget once all the other items were collected. Turns out I did not have room for it this week. Ha!
What I Ate
My main meal this week was this scrumptious Bacon, Bean, and Potato Soup ($7.76 recipe / $0.78 serving). OMG it’s so flavorful and thanks to the bean AND potato combo, it’s super filling. It made a HUGE batch, so I was even able to freeze three servings and let my boyfriend eat some too. #win
To go along with the soup, I made not just one, but TWO batches of this No-Knead Ciabatta ($0.42 recipe / $0.11 serving). Making your own bread is a huge budget saver because a loaf like this is usually $3-$4 at the store—that’s almost 10x the homemade cost! This no-knead method is my favorite because it’s really easy and doesn’t require a lot of hand-on time. Click through the link to watch the video and see just how easy the process is.
I was gifted a small bag of satsumas this week and I’m SO grateful for them. They are the tastiest little citrus babies I’ve ever eaten. They’re small, sweet, and super easy to peel. Satsuma trees in New Orleans produce a LOT of fruit, so this time of year people often bring bags of them into work and other places just to get rid of them all. I’m loving it!
My go-to snack or savory breakfast is a fried egg in a tortilla, and for some reason I was really craving them this week. I ate too, too many. I went through that entire pack of tortillas and finished off the dozen eggs that I bought the week before. But hey, that’s why I keep that stuff on hand! Great filler.
I intended to freeze the rest of the bacon and feta, but I’ll admit, I ate the rest of the bacon with breakfast later in the week, and sacrificed one 2oz. cube of feta (1/4 of the block) to my cheese cravings. #cheeseaddict
I ate out one time this week, but it was my birthday, so I don’t feel bad about that at all. And no, I won’t be telling you how old I am. I suppose maybe you could say I ate out twice because one day I did have a killer sushi craving, so I ran and picked up some so-so grocery store sushi… Cravings can be budget killers.
Leftovers
I feel like I had a lot of leftovers this week. Lets start with the bananas. I’m not having the best luck with bananas lately. While the bananas at least made it home with me this week, they went straight from green to brown and I hate it when they do that. I only ate one, but made sure to freeze the rest for use in smoothies or banana muffins.
I love frozen bananas in smoothies because it gives the smoothie a thick, ice cream-like texture. I usually use half a banana per smoothie, but I like to break that half into two smaller pieces because they fit in my blender better that way. So, to freeze these bananas for smoothies, I broke each banana into four pieces, wrapped two pieces each into fold top sandwich bags, then tossed all the wrapped bananas into one quart sized freezer bag. That way I can just grab one half of banana at a time, unwrap it, and toss it into the blender. DONE. They do still get brown in the freezer, just at a much slower rate. They usually stay good for about two months for me.
I did eat one little block of feta, but I still had a good 4 ounces that I froze for later use. I used a technique similar to the bananas, where I wrapped each 2oz. cube in a fold top sandwich bag, then put them both into a quart sized freezer bag. I usually use about 2oz. of feta per recipe, so I’ve got about two future recipes worth of feta on hand. Cheese freezes really well, but it tends to be a bit more crumbly upon thawing. With feta, which I usually crumble anyway, it’s not an issue.
I also had some leftover carrots and celery from the soup. I usually chop them up and freeze them for my next batch of soup, but I did get a bit lazy with that this week. Instead, I’m going to make more carrot sticks to snack on because I really enjoyed that and I think I can use the celery in one of the dishes I have planned for the coming week.
Lastly, I wasn’t able to eat all of my Autumn Harvest Salad, before the end of the week or before it got a bit soggy, so some of that went in the trash. Overall, I think I’m still really low on the food waste scale, so I’m not going to feel too bad about that one!
Summary
This week went very smoothly and I felt well fed! I loved the variety I had and was happy that I was able to save most of my leftovers in the freezer.
I’m getting into a rhythm of making 2-3 new recipes per week plus one old recipe from my archives, which I update with great new photos and any tweaks to the recipe that I feel necessary. Because the old recipe will live in the archives at it’s original date, make sure you follow on social media so you can see when and what recipes I’m breathing new life into. I’ll always post pictures and links to the old recipes that I remake, but they won’t show up on the front page of the website. Follow me on: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram to never miss an update! Oh yeah, and catch me on Youtube to see recipes in action!
Eggs in tortillas (and oatmeal!) are my breakfast go-tos also!
I like to make a batch of quinoa and freeze it in smallish portions, then I pull one out and add that to my egg taco! I buy local organic eggs so I try to just eat one a day since they are $5/doz. But I love that I get them from my neighbors and they are so so tasty.
Another way to keep bananas longer is to refrigerate them once they get as ripe as you like them. The peels will turn brown in the fridge but the inside won’t ripen further. I don’t like eating cold bananas out of hand but they’re fine in oatmeal or cereal. Or you could plan a little ahead and let them come back to room temperature before eating.
Happy Birthday!
I’ve tried lots of your recipes and liked every one. Dragon noodles are a special favorite.
You can store ripe bananas in the refrigerator for a few days to keep them from getting overripe too fast. The skins will brown, but the fruit will be fine.
How about a Satsuma-banana smoothie? I don’t have a recipe to share because left to my own devices, I mostly just toss together ingredients that sound like they will work together.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who uses question marks in her grocery lists, lol.
I made the bean, bacon, & potato soup this week, and it was great! My husband and I just ate up the last servings of it today for lunch. I wish I had let it cook a bit longer initially, because the beans somehow still seemed a bit crunchy, but it was delicious and I’d make it again.
If there is a Dollar Tree near you, check out their food section! Tortillas, pasta, pizza crust for $1!
If you plan to use the bananas for baking, you can also freeze them right in the peel. Take ’em out to defrost on the counter about an before you’ll need them. When you’re ready to add them to the recipe, just cut the end off and squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste. Voila! Pre-mashed banana, ready for muffins or bread.
Hahaah squeeze it out like toothpaste. :) That sounds fun!
So on the linked ciabatta recipe introduction, you say that you usually make a half-batch. Is the recipe as posted a half-batch, or should I halve the amounts that are listed? The picture looks like more bread than I would eat in a week.
Ooops! Yes, that sounds confusing. I need to fix that. The original (before I updated the post) was a huge batch and the updated recipe is a half batch. Thanks for pointing that out!
What Tone said about the bananas. After you break them apart, you can also wrap the stems in plastic wrap. They will last longer.
Beth, I love these weekly recaps. You’re inspiring me to do the meal planning I generally dread. Do you usually plan your meals based on the items your store has on sale for the week, or select recipes and modify them on the fly based on what’s cheaper at the store?
And happy belated birthday! :-)
I usually select recipes based on what I feel like eating first and foremost, because if I don’t feel like eating it, it will alllll go to waste. I try to choose things that involve ingredients that don’t have to be on sale for the recipe to be cheap. If I get to the store and find that something is more expensive than expected or there is something similar that is on sale for an even better price, I sometimes make the last minute change. :)
That sounds like a great strategy. Thanks so much for sharing. I struggle so much with meal planning, and your tips are very helpful. :)
We’ve been doing weekly meal planning and a single weekly shopping trip for the last couple of years, and it does take so much stress (and unplanned expenditure!) out of the equation. I’ve been looking for a fast bread recipe to save some money; thanks for sharing yours, looking forward to trying it!
I want to wish you a very Happy Birthday, Beth! So far, I’ve cooked thirty three recipes from your blog, and everything is within my budget!! I’m looking to cooking more recipes, and hopefully, I can make breakfast recipes. Keep up the good the work, girlfriend!!! :-)
Happy Birthday, Beth! :)
I’m sure you’ve already looked into this, but I learned recently that I can get bulk oats cheaper than oats in a canister — it’s about half the price, I think. This is actually one of the relatively few items I buy at Whole Foods, and for me it’s worth it because I eat oats for breakfast every single day. Just a thought!
That’s a good idea, and I’ll definitely look into it!!
Yep, I actually used to buy them from the bulk bins at Whole Foods all the time.:) I recently started buying the kind in the canister again just because I didn’t want to make the extra trip to a second store. Sometimes it’s a give and take. :)
Does your Rouses not have bulk bins? The one on Tchoupitoulas and Napoleon does; I have not shopped at the location you go to.
It does, but I totally forgot that they have oats over there. Their bulk stuff tends to be more expensive than Whole Foods, I find. I just did the math on the “Always Save” oats in the container and it ends up being $1.13/lb., which is pretty comparable to bulk prices (if I remember right?). If I had gone with Quaker or even the “Best Choice” generic brand, though, it would be much more expensive.
To store feta other than freezing you can dice it and put it into a glass with oil. I like a neutral one mixed with a hint of olive.
Seasoning is possible and very much advised to. Garlic, pepper, chives, and red pepper flakes are my go to.
I have been checking all day for this! Love your blog.
Have you tried storing the bananas separately? I eat a banana about an hour before every workout, so I go through a lot, and hate hate hate overripe bananas. I started stashing them separately, like 1 in each cupboard, and they lasted much longer that way. I’ve also heard of people wrapping the tops with plastic wrap to keep them longer. Also, loved the bean and bacon soup this week!
Interesting! I’ll have to try that. I’ve seen people wrap the top in foil, too. It seems kind of wonky, but I should probably at least try it. :P
Organic bananas have been a revelation for me. They’re not that much more expensive (especially for being organic) and they seem to last FOREVER, much longer than non-organic. They taste equally delicious slightly green or brown speckled – it is so strange!
Beth, no wonder you have a browning problem, you shouldn’t keep bananas together in a bundle like that. Bananas usually ripens fruit/veggies close to it, like berries and it even affects themselves. So I always break them apart or buy the ones broken off, then when I store them I keep them apart, then they don’t start going brownish before the week is up!
I’m going to try that next time! :)
Tone, that is a really great tip! Can’t wait to check that out, as I have too have a brown banana problem. Thank you!
Happy Birthday Beth!:)
Good tip on freezing the bananas. I love making smoothies but hate using a full banana when I want to make just one for myself.