Video Post: How We Approach Eating Out {Secrets for Dining and Saving Simply}

This weekend while snowed in and warm and cozy in my apartment while my husband was away, I played around for the first time with making an iMovie with my Mac.  I wanted to see if I could come up with a video that I could use for this post on eating out.  After several attempts, I figured out to make and crop a video, but it's no Martin Scorcese work - it's pretty rough around the edges!  I definitely need to keep practicing on my comfort in front of the camera.

But for now, I'll introduce my first video post by asking for an extra measure of grace and patience!

Thanks for checking it out!  I'd love to hear your feedback, questions, and tips of your own for how to eat out (and save!) more simply.

How I Grocery Shop {Secrets to Buying and Eating Simply}

As soon as it was official that I would be heading back to graduate school and instead of bringing in a teacher's salary and benefits, I would be a full-time student, paying for my own health insurance and tuition, it was decided: our budget needed to be simplified.


Gone were the gym memberships, the cable, part of our Netflix account (now we just watch instantly), and mindless shopping.  The change took (and still takes) adjusting to and humility, but it is one we were willing to take and view as an opportunity to learn to appreciate a more simple life.  This also speaks to what a guy my husband is - not only did he support my career change whole-heartedly, he actually encouraged it!  I feel lucky every day.

Part of the change we needed to make came in the form of our grocery bill.  I love natural, healthy, fresh food, and am usually willing to spend a little more on it.  However, I knew that our bill had to be cut significantly - we just couldn't afford my former eating/grocery habits.  At first, I went as cheap as I could be at our chain grocery store - canned goods, casseroles that would last us for almost the whole week, and lots of pasta.  And that worked, but it didn't satisfy my desire for at least some degree of freshness in our weekly eating. 


That's when I decided to explore options other than the chain grocery store closest by.  I went to local stores, markets, and family-owned shops.  I learned that some are convenient, small, and even local, but not cheap.  Out of that exploring, I found two options that work really well for us and met my three criteria - 

• They offer fresh food,
• Have bulk dry options, 
• And are significantly cheaper and local. 

For the most part, I now alternate my shopping between the local farmer's market in our small city each week for great, fresh produce, good bread for special occasions, and occasionally flowers or gifts; and doing the bulk of our regular, everyday shopping at a small country grocery store in a nearby town.  Although it is about a 20 minute drive to and from, it is worth it for the huge discount on prices we get.  Because most of it is from local Mennonite farms and bagged by the workers at the store, it is offered at a very modest price.  Also, they offer bulk dry goods, like sugar, flour, oats, and spices at a great price that allow me to go longer without needing to restock. 

Each week, I plan what I will buy and then occasionally change only when I find a better deal on something else.  I stick to mostly the same produce purchases each week (and the routineness does take getting used to...) because I've found what works well for our budget.

Fruit:
I now purchase mostly apples and bananas for our fruit (because they are cheapest) and occasionally berries from Costco.  I split half of my berries and often a few bananas and freeze them right away to use for smoothies and oats.

Vegetables:
Over the summer, it was essential - and enjoyable! - for us to grow most of the vegetables we ate in our city backyard garden.  We grew tomatoes, kale, squash, cucumbers, pumpkin, herbs, lettuce, carrots, and eggplant. 

 In the winter, it's a little harder.  I either purchase lettuce and squash from the farmer's market, or buy a mix of frozen vegetables in bulk to stock our freezer and bagged spinach leaves, potatoes, carrots, or celery, and occasionally tomatoes to use for BLTs (our favorite cheap, go-to meal on the weekends). 

Meat/Protein:
We rely mostly on chicken breasts to fulfill our meat cravings.  We buy it in bulk freezer packs at Costco, and take out as much as we need each time we cook.  This lasts us for at least a month or two.  We usually rely on gift cards to eat out to have steak or burgers.

I buy a lot of canned black, pinto, and white beans to use for protein in tacos, chili, and black bean burgers.  We also eat a lot more eggs than we used to.

Other Items:
I buy 2 pks of eggs at a time to last us awhile, and buy locally cut and packaged bacon and cold cuts for my husband.  The cold cuts have been a huge savings - I now pay about a third of what I used to pay!

So, what do we eat?
We eat a larger variety of things than I'd imagined we'd be able to, but we do have a few stand-by favorites:

• chili (vegetarian) and cornbread
• pot roast (with frozen venison my husband's family gave us)
• quesadillas (with frozen peppers, corn, and bbq chicken)
• BLTs
• chicken caesar salad
• baked potatoes
• grilled chicken w/ any seasoning imaginable!
• healthy chicken casseroles
• egg and salsa wraps
• soupw

Although is has been a change for us to embrace shopping and eating frugally, it has been one that we have learned from, continue to work on, and enjoy experimenting with.  I love the help and ideas I've gathered from the blogging community on how to eat healthily and frugally on a budget.  I've also sought advice from our families, who have had to endure the effects of budget ups and downs on their eating habits as they've experience life.


More to come on how we approach eating out.....

Frozen (Greek) Yogurt

We came back this afternoon from a fun and relaxing overnight getaway to the beautiful West Virginia eastern panhandle. We stayed in an old resort and spa in the woods that offered great prices on overnight stays in individual "condo-like" homes. We had our own jacuzzi and great high ceilings with sky lights. We also had access to a beautiful pool on the backdrop of their golf course, which allowed us time to cool off after a morning of playing tennis on their courts. It was so refreshing to be away from work schedules, the demands of home, and the noise of the city. It was quiet, remote, and had beautiful scenery. Needless to say, we had a GREAT time! Sometimes a getaway is just what you need....

With how HOT, HOT, HOT it's been lately, I'm always looking for cool treats to keep on hand. I have a deep love for ice cream, but health-wise, I try to limit myself to ... a few a week... (in the summer!) - I just LOVE ice cream! However, when I'm trying to have a healthier, less expensive, and quick option on hand, I love to freeze Greek yogurt and snack on it whenever I need to cool off.

Greek yogurt is creamy, delicious, and packs much more protein and less sugar than regular yogurt. If you haven't tried it, it's definitely worth trying - once I had it, I was hooked. Another motivation to try it - researchers at Harvard Med recently released a long-term study of which eating habits helped participants lose and maintain, or gain, the most weight. Those who ate yogurt as a daily habit were the most likely to lose and maintain their weight! You can read more about this study here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html?emc=eta1.

Here's how to make delicious frozen Greek yogurt - it is truly the easiest frozen snack I've come across!

Frozen Greek Yogurt:

1. Scoop about 1/2 - 1 full cup of Greek yogurt into a cup (depending on how much you'd like to have!). I use Chobani Non-fat Greek Yogurt - that's my favorite. However, there are plenty of other brands out there. I usually get plain yogurt, but sometimes for a treat, I get vanilla, and have found that it makes this frozen yogurt a little more tasty. I use paper cups whenever I have them left over from a party/cookout, but they'd be great in glass or plastic cups, or popsicle makers too!

2. Put the cups in the freezer for an hour or two. (I usually make a few cups and put them in the freezer to grab whenever I'd like.

3. When you're in the mood for a snack, take one out of the freezer, and I find they're best when they are put in the refrigerator for a little while to soften up. I usually leave them there for at least 20-30 minutes before I'm going to eat it.

4. And they are that easy! They are a great after-lunch or dinner snack. I like to eat mine with blueberries - they're a nice balance to the tangy sweetness of the yogurt. Enjoy! (And think of what a creamy, healthy, protein-filled snack you're enjoying!)

Cooking, Freezing, and Self-Love

Today I found a new blog that I absolutely love, www.faithfitnessfun.com. Tina, the author, wrote a 30 day series awhile ago about Self Love, talking about the endless cycle that we can fall into of self-criticism and doubt. Self-love is not a selfish kind of love, which is the extreme that we could fall into on the other end, but I would guess that most of us (besides celebrities, maybe? - and even then we might be surprised!) err on the side of criticizing ourselves too frequently.

The first day of Tina's 30 days series begins with a reflection on building confidence, a topic that I identify with instantly. The first quote she had felt like it spoke right to what I so often struggle with:

"It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you're not." ~Author Unknown

A large part of why I have struggled with self-doubt for much of my adult life is that I beat myself up over little things and compare myself with anyone else who seems like they are doing what I "should be" doing. I am learning that accepting myself and learning to embrace the good and the growth is an essential part of trusting God in my life and the key to truly being the person that I would like to be (aka the person I really "should" be).

There is a challenge at the end of each day's Self-Love entry to choose to reflect on something that you do well as a person: skills, enjoyable activities/hobbies, traits, etc. and to actually name them.

I enjoy learning and reading about new ideas, and then talking about them (anyone who knows me knows this too well!) and sometimes even trying them. I love to read and hear others' ideas about how to live more simply and creatively while using less and reusing/recreating more. Members of my church, family, friends, and authors have inspired most of what I do and value today. I also like to share ideas and am concerned with others and how my struggles, ideas, and lessons learned can help those around me who I love and perhaps don't even know yet!

Today I challenged myself to make several different meals to freeze and store for the months ahead to save both time and money. Since I will be going back to school, and Ben and I will be going back to living on one income, we are trying to simplify our lives and be creative with our resources. This means we have canceled our cable, gym memberships, DVD rentals, etc., but all in seeking out a fuller and simpler life. Today I wanted to make as many meals as I could, and track how much I spent.

Much of these contain ingredients from our garden, so the cost is significantly affected by that. Also, I shop at local farmer's markets and country stores, where I've found the prices are much lower than at the chain grocery store.

At two different stores today I bought:

- 1/2 dozen ears of corn
- A carton of baking potatoes
- 3 green peppers
- 3 zucchini
- Condensed milk
- 2 cans of Tomato paste
- Jar of dill spice
- Apple cider vinegar

and added it to a selection of veggies we had from our garden.

I had time today to make four different recipes. I made:
- "Spicy" Lentil Vegetable Soup from Food To Live By Earthbound Farms Cookbook (in quotes because my level of spiciness is just from how much chili powder I put in! My level of spice-tolerance is near-Amish.)
- Chili from Simply in Season cookbook
- Tomato Cuke Dill Relish from same cookbook
- Creamy French Dressing, an old recipe from my mom's bookshelf
- Frozen Sweet Corn

I made enough to get 2 meals out of each dish (1 meal = 2 servings), so, 6 all together, since dressing and frozen corn don't count as a meal.

Lentil Soup:

Tomato Cuke Dill Relish (delicious with a green salad):

Frozen Corn:

and Chili:

My total grocery bill was $10.11, so divide that by 6, and you get $1.69 per meal!

You can see from my level of messiness and the dishes stacked up in my small kitchen that it left me with quite a lot of clean-up, which I am too tired to "Do Now" after an evening meeting and dinner.

I'm already looking around at other parts of the house that seem too messy and are left undone. But I'm trying to remember what I'm good at and what I like to do, and letting that be enough for today. (And having a small collection of meals in the freezer for a later date isn't too bad either...)

Today's Lesson: Be Rachel, and enjoy the process. :)
I encourage you to think about, and name your strengths. What are you good at and enjoy doing? I'd love for you to share!

Rewards of Looking Back and Ahead

Sometimes gardening is slow work - although weeds seem to come quickly at times, the day-to-day of harvesting can seem slow and patience-building. I walk out each morning and check the garden - anything to pick yet?

Like most things in life though, it's so important to look back and reflect on how yourself as a person, your project, career, company, etc. has grown and developed over time. This is the most positive kind of looking back - to see the "before" and "after" and celebrate growth. In gardening, it's the same thing - you start with a plot of land, and at the end, it has grown into a productive, useful place.

Here's our backyard before we dug in to it:






Here it is in the most recent shot I have from several weeks ago, as well as some close-ups of the vegetables we have so far:






I'm excited to see more come out of it and watch it grow - we are still trying to decide what to do with one area that has unsuccessful watermelons and cantaloupes in it, and if I can find a good late summer crop to replace it with.

In the meantime, I'm finding a lot of good suggestions for what to do with an abundance of tomatoes! Here is one of my favorite sites for using tomatoes: http://thatbritishwoman.blogspot.com/2008/08/50-1-things-to-do-with-tomatoes.html



"You usually have to wait for that which is worth waiting for."
Craig Bruce

Fresh Garden Salsa - The Best Reward After Months of Work

We came home this week from vacation with Ben's family, visiting his sister, Katie, in Seattle. When we got home, our garden had taken off! We have an abundance of tomatoes growing on the eight plants - which now look more like bushes - that we have planted.



I'm trying to come up with an idea for how we will use all of the tomatoes we will be harvesting this summer! I've seen recipes for tomato pie, balsamic glazed tomatoes, and all other delicious sounding tomato recipes. I'm hoping to hear recommendations from friends and family about what they like to do with tomatoes in the summer.

The first thing I did with the small batch that we gathered this week was to make salsa. Fresh, homemade salsa is one of my favorite things, but I realized that I had never actually made it myself before! (Ben has made it several times at his parents' house.) So I figured that Simply in Season, my go-to cookbook for fresh veggies, would be a good place to start. I used the Summer Salsa recipe on pg. 163, and although it got mixed reviews from Ben (too much basil, which he accurately identified made it taste more like bruschetta), but at a book swap party I had with girlfriends, they all loved it!

It's really basic and easy for a beginner (like me) who doesn't have a good attention span when it comes to following recipes!



Fresh Summer Salsa:

Ingredients:
8 medium tomatoes, diced
1 medium red onion, diced
1 large green pepper, diced
2-3 hot chili peppers (for a more mild and sweet salsa, I used banana peppers from our garden)
1/4 bunch fresh cilantro (I omitted this since we don't like it in our house!)
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt to taste

Directions:
Combine in medium sized bowl. Let stand (or refrigerate) for 30 minutes and serve. Enjoy!