2 baby plum tomatoes
3 mango fingers
2 green grapes
3 blueberries
2 cucumbers
2 sweet peppers x3
2 brown onions x3
2 red onions x3
2 strawberries
16 pink lady apples

Apparently I am a glutton for punishment and am considering breaking my food budget down by category. Instead of just having my "food" budget and having everything we eat or drink come from it, I'm going to trial breaking my food spending down into different categories (meat/seafood, dairy, vegetables, fruit - an important distinction for me over just produce, grains and pulses, pantry staples, processed/convenience foods, beverages, etc)

Does anyone else track such a specific breakdown?

As I've been shifting the way I think about food spending to an annual budget over a monthly or weekly budget over the course of the year, I've been wanting to do more bulk shopping of food categories for the year (ie buying a side of beef) which has had me starting to see my food budget as smaller parts of a whole rather than one large pool of money. Because how else do you make sure that a large bulk purchase isnt going to prevent me from being able to buy another type of food later in the year?

I'm also trying to look at it as smaller pieces so I can eke out areas where I can maybe pay a little more for quality instead of *everything* being about bottom dollar.

Anyway. I have a good handle on my regular food spending. I already look at it annually as a whole amount - most weeks I come well under my weekly average of the whole amount so other months I can take advantage of good sales to stockpile on.

I know I can feed my family of 8 pretty well for $35CAD/person/week (I'm at $33.80/person/week actual average for the year) But I havent tracked any data to be able to feel confident in breaking it down into smaller categories.

I guess mostly I'm looking for suggestions from anyone who does track by grocery categories what percentages you shoot for? How broad are your categories, and how do you handle things that could fit into multiple areas? (Ie are pickles a pantry staple or a vegetable?)

If you think I'm loony for even considering it, feel free to tell me so (but respectfully)

Eggplant Ground Pork Stir Fry (detailed recipe in the comment)

Ingredients:

3 eggplants

200 g ground pork

2 pcs salted fish

2 pcs shitake mushrooms

5 red chilis

3 garlic

2-3 scallions

Sauce:

1 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tsp mushroom powder

1 tsp chili oil

1 tsp chili bean sauce

1 tbsp Shaoxing wine

100 cc water

1 tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp Sichuan peppercorn

Instructions:
Soak the dried mushrooms with hot water. Set aside. Slice them thinly when it is soft. Cut the eggplants into small slices, around 7-8 cm length. Deep fry until the color turns a bit brown. Drain. Set aside.

Deep-fry the salted fish, cut them into small pieces. If you like them crunchy, cut them into tiny pieces and deep-fry them again. Heat some oil in the wok, put in minced garlic and ginger, sautee until fragrant. Thrown in the ground pork, stir fry until it changes color.

Throw in mushrooms. Add in oyster sauce, soy sauce, chili bean sauce, chili oil, and mushroom powder. Throw in the fried eggplants. Add water.
Pour cooking wine into the wok. Add cornstarch slurry, don't forget to stir it before adding. Throw in some green onion and chili. And last, add the salted fish. Stir for the final time and serve on a plate. Enjoy with steamed white rice.

Made this eggplant and ground pork stir fry today. The eggplant turns really soft and soaks up all the savory sauce, while the ground pork makes it hearty enough for a full meal.

This is exactly the kind of dish I love serving with a big bowl of hot rice because the sauce is too good to waste. 😄

Do you like your eggplant really soft and silky, or do you prefer it to keep a little bite?

Just got my weekly Big Y market flyer via email, up here in New England. They have whole chickens at 99¢/lb. I am going to get 2 or 3 of those, 1 for making soup, 1 to roast & 1 for the freezer. Through the 28th. House brand birds w/member card.

I've been freezing chicken carcasses & bones to make stock.

I put some favorite veggies (celery, carrots, no onions, which are evil) in my stock pot with the bones along with peppercorns, kosher or sea salt & simmer all day. Any extra stock goes into generic ziploc bags from the $ store. I lay those flat to freeze. I will take chicken from a roasted bird & put that in the slow cooker with stock, spices, herbs & veggies. I like to use barley, wild rice, sweet potato &/or regular potato. Carrots, of course, which are also on sale. Some soup gets frozen. I may trade some with my housemates, & also take cash!

Hope it’s the right flair as I am more discussing what I’m trying more than it’s a meal. But I will include the process on how to cook the dried chickpeas and beans in the instant pot, for those who may be interested in it.

I tend to use canned beans and chickpeas when I make salads. But I was thinking what if I make a batch of dried of each type I eat regularly and freeze them.
This way I can take as little or as much I want each time. Instead of having to eat a full can in a few days. Also, I can add a little of each if I wanted to make a multi bean salad.

Anyways, I’m giving it a shot. I’ll be portioning it out into 2 bags each. I didn’t add salt as the instructions say to, as I always buy the salt free cans anyways. The splash of oil to add in, is apparently to prevent foaming and clogging the instant pot valve.

I made chickpeas, kidney beans and black beans today. I only took a photo of the chickpeas as it was the 1st batch I made.

If I do this again I will tweak the timing on the beans, as it seems a tad overdone. With freezing it will most likely break down more when it thaws. I think I’ll try 5 minutes less next time.

Maybe others already do this and have the perfect time down. ☺️

Anyways, thought I’d share what I’m trying to save money by buying them dried and using only what I need at a given time.

*Recipe in comments

If you ever have a bunch of potato peels here’s what you can do with them.

And boom. You have made another meal.
And of course, you can add whatever you want on top. Cover them with cold water in the refrigerator until you’re ready☺️

College student with closest store that is Trader Joe’s. What favs do you have?

This was from just over a month ago, that I purchased, portioned and froze it. Just getting chance now to post.

When I went shopping I noticed they had these 2 pack roasts on sale, so I picked this up for just over $25 CND.

I decided to cube the meat and divided it into 3 freezer bags to make stews during the colder months ahead.

That would be about $8.60 CND per bag.

When it’s time to make the stew I’ll make it more veggie heavy to get more meals out of it. Plus use my homemade frozen bone broth.

Usually when I make stew it will fill my
8 quart instant pot, so it lasts us about 3-4 days.

Just showing one way to cut down meat from something larger to save money.

I don’t have a Costco membership, but I understand you can get even bigger portions of meat for obviously a better price.

Recipe in comments

Not the most visually appealing meal - colors are more muted than I expected but tasted great. Recipe below.

Ingredients
* 1 lb of pork thinly sliced
* 1/2 red and 1/2 orange bell pepper - julienned then cut into thirds
* 1/2 a large sweet onion, roughly chopped
* heaping tablespoon of minced garlic (jarlic used for convenience)
* salt and pepper to taste
* splashes of sake, soy sauce, dark soy sauce, water and some corn starch for a marinade
* Teriyaki sauce - we used a homemade one but whatever you like

Instructions
* Combined your pork, soy sauces, water and cornstarch into a plastic container w/lid and slake up
* Place meat in fridge for 30 min minimum
* Make rice per instructions and set aside.
* Meanwhile in your wok or skillet - preheat on med high heat
* Stir fry your meat in batches so not to crowd pan until thoroughly browned to your liking
* Place meat on paper towel lined plate to blot excess oil
* Sauté veggies to your liking.
* Add meat back to pan and add in teriyaki sauce.
* Warm thru and serve over rice

I was given ten pounds of potatoes, three pounds of onions, and a pack of high fiber tortillas from a food pantry. I saw bacon on sale for $3.99, so I got three packs. (Haven't had it in about six months.)

I baked the potatoes a couple nights before and fried them in a skillet with onion and butter.

Six pieces of bacon, (three for me, three for my husband.)

Eggs consisted of: half a poblano, half a Roma, two mushrooms, a quarter of a small onion, six eggs, shredded cheese on top.

​

I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure how to run the numbers on this but I'm curious if anyone has. Here's my thought process: It is probably cheaper to get a big bag of potatoes and make it from scratch, especially if you use up any leftover potatoes for other recipes. But if you buy a big bag of potatoes, only use 1-2 to make mashed potatoes, and then the rest go bad, then yes that would be wasting money. I guess the benefit of instant is that they are shelf stable.

I personally have never gotten the instant stuff because I actually like my mashed potatoes to be somewhat chunky. I also like to use my extra potatoes for other things like baked potatoes or just dicing them and air-frying them as a side dish. With the instant stuff, you can use it to thicken soups but I'm not sure that there are alternative uses.

Thoughts on this?

ETA: if you are here to get on your soapbox about the nutritional value of instant mashed potatoes, please just keep in mind that you are not original and it’s already been said before. That’s not really what this is about.

Made a little too much pasta the other night decided to keep it for a random lunch to keep from DoorDash. Made bell pepper soup couple nights ago so today o decided to combine them together for this creation.

Chicken, red onion and Jalapeños with garlic base. Delicious and cheap

Here’s what the upcoming plans are for the week for meals. Below are my plans for lunch and dinner.

* Sunday: Lunch will probably be some frozen fish and sliced potatoes in the oven. Dinner is chicken Ala king over biscuits with apple sauce and cut up veggies
* Monday: Lunch is likely sardines and some veggies. Dinner is leftover chicken Ala king
* Tuesday: Lunch will be chili (freezer meal). Dinner will be pork stir fry with onions and peppers
* Wednesday: Lunch is likely leftover stir fry. Dinner will be whole chicken cut up and oven roasted with green beans (or peas) and a starch tbd
* Thursday: Lunch is most likely rice and beans from freezer (sausage, beans, sauce) and leftover rice. Dinner will be leftover chicken from Wed - either as is or repurposed.
* Friday: Lunch likely to be another freezer meal and leftover rice (rice and beans most likely). Dinner tbd - maybe hamburgers but likely grocery run in the middle of the week.
Saturday: Lunch likely sardines or subs from a local market. Dinner is date night at a sit down restaurant

It finally cold enough in the NYC area to need a pot of chicken soup, Here is my non-recipe recipe for cheapo chicken soup

1 Chicken thigh, bone and skin included, cut into bite sized pieces

Bones from the summer time rotisserie chickens, defrosted

Onion, Celery and carrot scraps from the frozen veggie scrap bag, defrosted

1 Stalk fresh celery

2 fresh carrots, sliced into rounds or half moons, whatever you like.

8 cups water

8 teaspoons chicken broth powder (add more as needed after an hour of cooking)

pepper and salt

1 tablespoon oil

Heat the oil in a medium pot, saute the chicken bits and the bones and then the frozen onion and celery bits until a fond (brown stuff on the bottom) develops. Add the fresh celery and carrot. Add the chicken powder, the pepper and the water as well. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a gentle simmer and cook with a cover slightly cracked for at least an hour. Two is better.

Tada - you have cheapo chicken soup! The bones and the little bit of chicken gives enough body to the plain broth powder that you can't tell that you didn't drown a whole chicken to make the soup.

We eat very little meat, but I buy some chicken on sale occasionally to keep in the freezer just to have it ready for a cold day pot of soup. I have no shame taking the gnawed off bones off of my family's plates and putting them in the freezer for later use. The same with wilted or hard pieces of onions and celery, nothing that has gone bad mind you, but parts that are best after an hour or two of cooking.

Nothing leaves my kitchen until all the flavor has been extracted from it. Its both a budget and an environmental action on our part.

The beef is what really spiked the price but I felt like treating myself. Haven't eaten beef in months. Everything else was $1.50 or less except the garlic bread which was 2.90. That's why I've been practically vegetarian the past few months lol. I do eat tuna or chicken 1-2 times a week though. I can use this food for multiple meals though. Red beans and rice, lentil soup, and the toast and beef for the pasta ill be making for dinner. I was ale to get 10 packages of pasta for less than $10 on sale so ill be eating a lot of it. Apologies for the rambling caption

I run MrTinned (mrtinned.com), the market reporter which tracks prices, deals and stock for over 6,600 tins at 219 online shops every day. This month I pulled the cheapest single tins per 100g that you can order online. Every tin below was in stock, at this price, at a shop that ships to the US at the time of this post. Chunk light tuna is left out on purpose because it would win every time. Single tins only, no cases or multipacks, and one tin per brand.

A few things stood out:

• Sprats take 5 of the 20.
• GoStockUp has 3 of the 20, all sprats.
• Three Baltic tins tie at exactly $3.99 for 240g.

Each name below links to the tin's page on AllTinned (alltinned.com), the tinned fish reference site that shows who stocks it, whether today's price is fair, and a free Watch that tells you when the price moves.

Which of these have any of you actually eaten, any of them worth it?

What is your go-to cheap tin that is not on this list?

1. Chudo Morey Sprats with Tomato, 240g at GoStockUp: $2.27 ($0.95 per 100g)
2. Roza Sardines in Tomato Sauce, 155g at ThailandBazar: $1.55 ($1.00)
3. El Mexicano Sardines in Tomato Sauce, 425g at Marina Market: $4.49 ($1.06)
4. Bumble Bee Premium Wild Pink Salmon, 14.75oz at Target: $4.49 ($1.07)
5. Riga Gold Smoked Fried Baltic Sprats in Tomato, 240g at GoStockUp: $2.80 ($1.17)
6. Sealect Sardines in Spicy Dressing, 155g at ThailandBazar: $1.86 ($1.20)
7. Penguin Boiled Mackerel, 400g at MegaKfood: $4.99 ($1.25)
8. Grace Classic Mackerel, 155g at Target: $1.99 ($1.28)
9. Iberia Sardines in Tomato Sauce, 4.2oz at Target: $1.59 ($1.34)
10. Ras Asayr Tuna in Sunflower Oil, 185g at Parthenon Foods: $2.49 ($1.35)
11. Alshark Moroccan Sardines in Tomato Sauce, 125g at Parthenon Foods: $1.69 ($1.35)
12. StarKist Selects Solid Yellowfin Tuna in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 4.5oz at Target: $1.79 ($1.40)
13. Roland Sardines in Tomato Sauce, 212g at Parthenon Foods: $2.99 ($1.41)
14. Krakus Herring Fillets in Gourmet Sauce, 200g at Euro Food Mart: $2.99 ($1.50)
15. Dongwon Boiled Mackerel, 400g at Hanyang Mart: $5.99 ($1.50)
16. Rugen Fisch Fried Herring in Spicy Marinade, 500g at World Market: $7.99 ($1.60)
17. Baltic Gold Fried Sprats in Tomato Sauce, 240g at Russian Food USA: $3.99 ($1.66)
18. Old Riga Fried Baltic Sprats in Tomato Sauce, 240g at Bakkal International Foods: $3.99 ($1.66)
19. Baltic Catch Natural Sardines, 240g at Russian Food USA: $3.99 ($1.66)
20. The Best of Riga Smoked Sprats in Oil, 240g at GoStockUp: $4.06 ($1.69)

15$ per steak! SFV SoCal, Chatsworth specifically.

Scraped up what I could find in the cabinets and the fridge and managed to make a curry. Came out pretty good and made several large helpings. Red lentils, pumpkin, onion, garlic, tomato, curry spice, served over white rice. Total cost for a potful was less than $10.

Sorry for the long title 😆 but after a long day that’s what it is.

Today after work I stopped off at the local store and stumbled across a lot of reduced meat and I picked these things up. The ground beef I’ve already portioned into 3 and it’s in my freezer.

The boneless skinless chicken is good till October 24th so I’ve got some time. I’ll probably use 1 fresh and freeze the other 2. But I was thinking what if I freeze it with a sauce or something so I can do a quick cook when I need it.

I use stove top and also an instant pot.

Let me know if you have ideas.
Thanks in advance.

OK. Hear me out. Microwave ramen noodles in a bowl of water for approximately 2.5 minutes on high. Add one egg and scramble slightly. Microwave on high for 1.5 more minutes. Drain. Add 2 table spoons of nacho cheese, 1 table spoon of bacon bits, and garlic powder and pepper as desired (1/2 teaspoon each.) Microwave for 1 more minute. Enjoy!